Uzumaki's way
by Guy Fawkess
Summary: A boy, hated and abused by the people he protects by simply existing, an ambitious man calling himself the old ghost of the Uchiha clan, and a kidnapping under everyone's nose... This is how a legend started. How will it end no one knows but one thing is clear; the world everyone knows will be changed forever... gray!smarter!Naruto. mostly not permanent pairings, bix. M 4 swearing.
1. who is naruto

**My first try at writing a story. Review after reading if you like. Don't bother flaming though I'll ignore them.**

 **I don't own Naruto.  
**

* * *

Konoha, The village hidden in leaves.

One of the five great elemental villages and said to be the strongest of them. Being stronger than others doesn't mean being better though. Like others she too has dirty secrets and skeletons in her closet but she hides them behind a peaceful aura. Warmly smiling to hide her sins, deceiving everyone but most experienced and cunning...

and of course those who saw her real face.

Villagers. Like most humans seeing what they want; hearing, listening, understanding what they want.

Everything else can and will be ignored, hated, feared …despised.

Like a certain young boy.

His name was Naruto. He was an orphan, his parents died at the mysterious kyuubi incident years ago. He contained it. This made it impossible for him to have a normal life. They hated him but did not touched him because they feared kyuubi, not knowing it sealed tight in him; only in extreme moments its power can be out, but that didn't stopped them using other ways.

That forced him to mature quickly to survive.

At first he tried, tried his hardest to get accepted with no success. He started to think, what caused such animosity towards him? Why he was hated so much? He asked to the Sandaime Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, one of the numbered people who didn't hated him, but never got an answer. He always eluded the question. He also asked about his parents to him too but again he didn't got a satisfactory answer.

"I'll tell you when you are older"

This was the answer every time he asked.

They called him demon so he thought he had to be one. That would explain why he was hated and why Sandaime never gave an answer to who his parents were. But that brought more questions; why was he here? Where were his parents? Were they alive? When some time passed and he didn't get any answers, he just ignored those questions to continue living, thinking maybe at time there would be answers to his questions. He lived that way until he was four. Then he got kidnapped…

 _FLASHBACK_

He found himself in a dark place – the musty smell was indicating that he was either in a cave or in another place underground- trying to understand how that did happened. Last thing he remembered doing was going to bed and sleeping. His thoughts cut off by a voice.

"So you are awake?" the voice said "good he is waiting." He heard them walking towards him.

He felt them taking his arm and leading him to somewhere. When they took a turn he could see a faint light coming at the end of the way. He looked at his captor; it was a white human like creature with green hair, pupilless yellow eyes and deathly pale body. They reached there – it was a great hall. On the walls torches were lighting the hall weakly. At the end of the hall a figure was sitting still, apparently sleeping. When they got close he could see details of the figure; it was an old man. He had Gray long spiky hair, wrinkly pale face, a dark robe. He opened his single eye and he saw most striking feature; his single left eye, crimson with a pupil and in a circle around it three tomoes – sharingan.

With his work done the creature took his leave, leaving old man and the boy alone. They stared each other for several minutes, neither breaking eye contact until the old man spoke.

"You don't seem afraid. You had been kidnapped, don't you fear that you can be killed?" he said, looking at the boy who doesn't seem to be affected by the chain of events.

"What would being afraid change? If you wanted to kill me you could do that while I was sleeping and I would be oblivious to that." He said while looking around. There were four columns supporting the ceiling. "As for fearing death; my life already is a hell. Maybe I'll find afterlife better."

'He is suitable, no he is perfect.' The old man thought while narrowing his eyes at the boy."Then I'll introduce myself and tell you my plan; my name is Uchiha Madara and the plan is project Tsuki no Me…"

 _END OF FLASHBACK_

* * *

 _KONOHA ACADEMY_

That was nine years ago. He learned everything he can from that man, everything he had - both good and bad. But in the end he died. He thought he left another discipline, but the boy was much more realist than him. He learned there was a group named Akatsuki from one of White Zetsu which had another of Madara's discipline as its leader. He was a broken man who couldn't get after his crush's death so tried to make a dream world to revive her. He didn't had any problem with him, even after he learned that man was behind the 'Kyuubi Incident' so he settled to watch him instead.

"You should wake up Naruto, he is about to shout to you."

This was Akimichi Chouji . Heir of an overweight but powerful Akimichi clan.

"He is never going to leave me alone a little is he?" Naruto sighed. He loved their teacher, Iruka, but he could be annoying at times.

Next to him was still sleeping Nara Shikamaru, Heir of the lazy but genius Nara clan.

Seeing Naruto waking up Iruka changed his focus back to lecturing.

But the blond wasn't listening to him, looking out of the window, watching sky.

"… And this is it. Alright class as you all know tomorrow you will have graduating exam. Make sure you are ready for it, dismissed."

* * *

 **End of prologue. Thanks for reading.**


	2. kyuubi and end of academy?

**I don't own Naruto. Enjoy.**

"talking"

'thinking'

" **inhuman/techniques"**

* * *

 _ **GRADUATION DAY**_

It was the day, the day he would be free from this boring place. White Zetsu told him Akatsuki is waiting for the Sanbi –the three tails- to manifest itself again to start advancing so he had roughly 3 or 4 years to stay and maybe play ninja for Konoha, this much he owed to Sandaime.

Sandaime… he did know if he should love or hate the old man. He tried his best to make his life more livable in Konoha, but also left him in dark with many things. His parents for example, he was not a fool to shout secrets to the world; he could keep it to himself if he told him about them and told him to keep it as a secret. Kyuubi issue was another, at least then he could somewhat understand the animosity towards him, maybe try to make contact with the being but it had to wait for a couple years after his kidnapping.

Training with Madara was not easy but very rewarding. He had to make appearance in Konoha or they would hunt him so first he learned after their initial meeting was conjuring clones. He learned two types to create:

Shadow clone creating was easy enough with his reserves stretched to limit from Kyuubi's presence.

Super clones a little tricky through, it was a shadow clone enhanced with a part of user; blood, hair or any other part to increase its durability. After initial requirement for merging, it required constant tickle of chakra to sustain and a bigger part to regenerate any damage it may receive. The clone may cast techniques but it would draw from user and with increased chakra and further increase with distance. He managed through, his max was 5 clones. Anymore was draining too much and extended sustaining proved to be dangerous for him. He tried conjuring ten a month or two after learning the technique and fainted afterwards, it was first time he contacted with the Kyuubi.

 _ **FLASHBACK**_

A sewer, he was in a sewer with no idea where exactly is he or how did he get here. After analyzing around a little more he heard a voice calling him. Nothing better to do, he followed the voice until he came across a gigantic cage.

" **Come closer boy** "

Getting suspicious but also curious, he got nearer to the cage and immediately jumped back to avoid the huge claw that nearly divided him in two.

" **So my lovely warden decided to grace me with his presence, I'm honored.** "

Suddenly alight, he peered into cage's content it was a giant orange fox with nine tails. It had red slitted eyes, huge rabbit like ears and fangs longer than himself. When he looked closer, he realized waist up he looked humanoid.

"You are… Kyuubi right? Where are we and why did you attacked me?"

" **Why did I attacked you? Because you contain me, because of you I'm not free. Because of you and that blonde man, your father... Yondaime Hokage."**

He felt like he struck by lightning. Yondaime, his father? Why? Why old man didn't told him that? But still…

"I don't see why you hate me."

" **Because I'm sealed into you. You are taking away my freedom…** "

Now that explained a lot of things. Why villagers hated his guts, why did they deported him, why he had healed so fast… they saw him as the Kyuubi not Naruto and its chakra caused the regeneration acceleration.

"How I am to blame at that? You are sealed into me, you took away my chance to be normal but I can hardly hate you, you have given as much choice at that as me."

"… **True"**

"And from the incident of you tried to kill me means if I were to die you would be free. I don't want to die yet and as long as I'm behind these bars you can't kill me so we are struck like that for a time. What I suggest is get over your hatred, it won't do you any favor, and help me live my life. At the very least it is better than sleeping in a cage for years."

" **Hmm… I must admit you are not what I expected, not a fool monkey most humans are. Fine I'll help you."**

 _ **FLASHBACK END**_

That was how they first met, mutual interest started their relationship. The being shared its chakra and insight; he let the being use his senses to observe the world. That was their deal at first, and then it warmed to friendship.

"Uzumaki Naruto"

He got up from his chair and walked to examination room. It was a big room with a table and some training equipments; targets, training kunai and shuriken some objects for substitution etc. Iruka and Mizuki were behind the table with a box of hitai-ate headbands

"Alright Naruto I want you to create three bunshin (clones), kawari (substitute) with an object in this room and henge (disguise) to someone. Ready?"

"Yes"

"Start with henge please."

' **Henge'**

With a ram hand seal and mentally naming the technique later, another Iruka came out of some smoke.

"Very good Naruto. Kawari please."

Iruka threw a ball at Naruto who didn't do anything. When ball bumped Naruto he changed to a training dummy with some smokescreen.

'Odd, I didn't sense his replacement…'

"Excellent. Bunshin please."

Naruto put his hand to ram hand seal but felt Mizuki trying to disrupt his chakra. Curious, he let him do it and created one disfigured clone.

"… I'm sorry to say this Naruto but I can't pass you without performing all three techniques acceptably. You fail."

"I see"

He replied, not missing Mizuki's subtle smirk.

He went back to the class without his hitai-ate

"The noob didn't passed. Heh figures."

He ignored Kiba's comment, walking back to his desk.

He caught Hinata's eyes on him. Lavender, an odd eye color but better than normal white color of other Hyuuga. She blushed and averted her eyes, twirling her forefingers nervously. He shook his head, she was shy and kind but they would hinder her life as a ninja. He made a note to help her overcome hey shyness and harden her a little while playing ninja. That much he can do for her behavior against him in past years of academy.

He sat on his desk and watched last students to perform their exams while chatting with Kyuubi

" **I don't understand why you are still in this village. They made your life hellish, shouldn't you wish their destruction?"**

"Humans fear what they don't understand. That's their nature that is why they hate me, they don't understand me. Yes, I am angry at them but I can't blame them for their nature. I am here because I owe it to Sandaime, he tried his best to make my life normal… as normal as possible at least and I don't have to do anything yet. Obito and Zetsu are doing well without me. If something happens or Sandaime dies, I'll leave this village."

At first he didn't even want to make a peace, but people he came to cherish wished that so he did too, and that gave his life a reason. Madara wished that through an ultimate illusion, Sandaime wished through understanding each other but as he matured he realized both of these ideals can't succeed.

He thought Madara's plan of enslaving humanity in an illusion was not really a solution but also he understood that as long as different wills exist they would clash. So there were three fixes came to mind; destroying those wills, make different worlds for these wills or make a common goal for them. Destroying them would leave humans with nothing; they won't be any different than common animals. The way of making worlds for humans was Madara's plan which used combined power of great tailed beasts. No human could control that much power for ever which would destroy humanity after released. A common goal, trying to destroy a plan that would annihilate the world is one sufficient goal for wills to come together.

" **That's another thing I don't understand. That man killed your parents and made your life hell by unsealing me from your mother and hypnotized me to attack this village and yet you don't wish to kill him."**

"I don't have any love for this village not have any love for parents I don't even know. I may loved them, I may not but they sealed you in me and I gained a friend so it's not that bad. I wish to give him a good beating, but killing? No."

" ***sigh* I hate to say it but you are right, we both gained a friend. I would be still sealed in your mother, drowning in my hatred and bound to a lava stone with chains. I'm… somewhat glad sealed in you, there are worse fates than caged in a sewer."**

"Is it possible to change it I wonder, its uncomfortable to think my mind is a sewer."

" **You could ask that to someone specialized in mind but don't imagine it would be so easy. Then again it can be, it's your mind after all. For all we know it could be done with a simple thought."**

"Hmm… I'll try it when I have time to come to mindscape."

" **Why did you let that man disrupt your chakra anyway, I know you could resist it."**

"Because-"

"Alright, everyone took their exam. To those who pass; come again tomorrow for your squad selections. To those who fail; another exam will be take place in a week before start of the academy dismissed."

* * *

 **Another chapter, I hope you liked. I think I need a beta reader so if anyone wants to be mine send PM. Thanks.**


	3. backstabbing a traitor

**Sorry** **for the long wait (and short chapter?)**

 **I** **don't own Naruto**

"talking"

'thinking'

 **anything else**

* * *

 **ACADEMY GATES (4:30 PM)**

" **You still didn't answered my** **question** **Naruto."**

"huh?" This caused him pause his walk to home "Which question?"

" **Your failure at the genin exam. Why? Why did you let that man disrupt your chakra? Why did you failed?"**

" ah, that. If i become genin i have to serve villagers by doing missions from them. now I don't have to."

"There you are"

Naruto looked at Mizuki. He sensed the man but ignored him before that moment.

"Mizuki sensei? How can i help you?"

"Actually Naruto we want to help you."

"Help me? How and with who?"

"Me and Iruka talked and decided to give you another chance at becoming a genin. This is a different test given to students which shows more promise than other students for gauge their skills beter. Come with me while I inform you better about the test."

Suspicious but also curious, Naruto followed Mizuki to the back of the academy.

 **BEHIND THE ACADEMY BUILDING**

" We decided to test you in stealth and quickness. Your test is stealing an object, a scroll, from the hokage tower. It is a big scroll in the hokage's office. You have 2 hours to steal the scroll and learn a technique from it and return it to a shack at the forest east of the Konoha. You know where I am talking about, right?"

"Yes Mizuki sensei"

"Alright" He looked at the school clock " It's around 5 PM. ready? Go"

Naruto headed of to hokage tower. When sure he can't hear him Mizuki let off an evil chuckle.

" **You dont really think this is a test do you?"**

"Of course not"

" **then what are you doing it?"**

" I already know Mizuki is plotting something. This must have a part in that so im doing this to catch him in action. My money is to stealing the Scroll of Forbidden Seals."

" **Scroll of forbidden seals?"**

" The scroll Mizuki told me to 'learn' from."

" **Why? Is it that worthy?"**

" It is a scroll of forbidden techniques written by all hokages. Coin from it can buy several mountains so yes it is that worthy"

" **And should be heavily guarded."**

"I am sure I'll manage."

" **If you say so"**

Five or so minutes later Naruto landed at roof of hokage tower.

"The obvious choice is the window. The old man should doing paperwork."

" **are you going to incapacitate him?"**

"In a way, yes. I hope he wont hate me for this… or die from heart attack for that matter."

" **Hate? Heart attack? What are you going to do to him?"**

"You will see"

With a grin, Naruto transformed to a… rather busty and very naked blonde chick.

" **ah, i see"** Kyuubi said with a smirk.

"and here we go"

That being said (s)he jumped to the window, breaking it and inside

"Wh-Ho-WHAAAAT AHHHH!" Sandaime rocketed back with a geyser of a nosebleed. Naruto let out some chuckles and returned to the business.

"now where is that- ah there it is."

Spotting the scroll, he tied some Ninja wire to the scroll and slinged it to his back. He checked the poor old man's vitals. Figuring that he is only knocked out, he looked at the clock at the wall.

'It is 5:30, there is stil time'

 **HALF AN HOUR LATER, SHACK OUTSIDE OF KONOHA**

'1 hour left…' he looked at the scroll 'Why not? There is lots of time anyway.'

He unrolled the scroll and looked at its contents.

"Kage Bunshin… Huh? Nidaime hokage invented it? Who would have known. Edo Tensei… brings people back from afterlife… sacrifice required. Hmm not now but maybe later." He copied the technique "Shiki Fuujin… father used this on you didnt he?"

" **Yes. It was… painful cant describe it."**

"Agonizing?"

" **Yeah agonizing."**

"Eight trigrams… My, no, our seal… key? It has a key seal?"

" **Maybe you can find it? It will remove limits i guess"**

"I will look at that… what is this?"

" **what?"**

"its a-"

* * *

 **END OF THE CHAPTER**

 **I know, i know. Cliffhanger and im giggling like an idiot now. Okay again sorry for my lateness i *sheepish* forgot that i write a story and a follow message reminded me that. I hope you dont hate me… much…too much? Anyway thanks for reading.**


	4. Scroll of Forbidden Seals

**Yo… nothing to say… ah nearly forgot**

 **I don't own Naruto**

"talk"

'think'

" **other"**

 **Chapter 3**

* * *

"- Storage seal?"

" **What is so surprising in that?"**

"I thought it only contained forbidden techniques. Then again it is Scroll of Forbidden _Seals_ so i shouldn't be surprised"

" **Well, will you look what is inside of the seal that had been categorized as forbidden?"**

"Of course I will"

" **Be careful though, they are forbidden… things for a reason"**

"Right"

He created a shadow clone and walked behind a tree 10 meters ahead.

"Do you thing its safe now?"

" **Maybe, but at least now you have better chance at running if something bad happens"**

"Fair enough"

He mentally commanded the shadow clone to unseal the storage's contents and coiled his muscles to leap away if required. What came out was not dangerous at the first sight. It was a large scroll with little skulls.

"Huh?"

He came nearer and took the scroll from the clone to investigate it better. He opened the scroll and his eyes widened.

"Death summoning contact"

" **Death summoning? I didn't know such a thing existed."**

"That doesn't answer why it's in the forbidden scroll."

" **Morals?"**

"That would be stupid, but not the first stupid thing this village had done."

They were silent for a couple seconds.

" **Will you sign it?"**

'Will I indeed. I need power but forbidden seals… I would have more power for their… my dream but it also can kill me. I still need every scrap of power to make it a reality. I may learned everything I can learn from Madara but who said there aren't better fighters?

"Why not?"

He took a kunai, slit his right index finger and signed his name. It healed a couple of seconds later.

"Now wha-"

His consciousness left him.

" **Naruto? Naruto!"**

He found himself laying in a place he never seen before. It was a large room with two mirrors, a grim throne with skulls decorating it and ceiling candle chandeliers. There was no rooms so only thing came to his mind was summoning.

" **Another mortal found the contact, I see."**

He looked at the throne, which had a figure sitting now. He (?) had long, messy, white hair; tattered white robes and a long dagger. His mind started to make sense of the situation

'I signed the contact and summoned to somewhere. This must be the boss or some… thing equally important. So he must be-'

"Shinigami, I presume."

" **Yes, I am Shinigami. And you are?"**

"Naruto, Uzumaki Naruto."

" **I see. So Uzumaki Naruto, why did you signed the death contract?"**

"Is it not obvious? I need power; I need to be powerful enough to dominate every person in the living world. Then… my dream can be archived **.** "

" **And what is that dream?"**

"World peace. At first, it was not my dream; rather dream of two people I came to care. Care enough to be their legacy. But one thinks love can only be archived with love and other thought peace is only an illusion so plotted to make illusionary worlds for people to live in.

I learned by hard way that people _like_ hating and find things to hate. It will not be long before people got bored of peace and started to hate it too and will start warring again.

The illusion idea may make peace, but destroys humanity. It would be… not dead but nonliving world. People would be in their little worlds, without other people and dies when their time comes or something kills them.

What I have in mind is some person or group powerful enough to threaten the world. Which would unite wills to destroy the 'common enemy'."

" **To start such a group, you must have overwhelming power."**

"I don't need to start such a group; there is already one. I just need to control it."

" **Still they too will be mortal and will die in the end. This peace won't be permanent. Your idea has flaws but it is best you have in hand if I am not mistaken. Fine looks like you have a chance at passing the test."**

"Test?"

" **Yes you need to take that test to be a death summoner. Be warned, you have only one go and if you fail you will die. Also don't forget, great power comes with great sacrifice."**

With a snap of Shinigami's long fingers, a skull chalice appeared in Shinigami's hand. Then he placed the chalice on his lap and impaled his wrist with his dagger. A dark blood like substance flowed to the chalice. When it was filled to half, Shinigami pulled out the dagger and his wound closed like it hadn't opened in the first place.

" **This may give you some of my powers but also may kill you. This is the test."**

Naruto eyed the chalice warily, weighting pros and cons.

'I may die or gain some godlike powers. World is big I may find another source, I also may not and as Shinigami said, great power comes with great sacrifice… does that mean I should die?'

"Will this kill me for sure?"

Shinigami smiled **"You are attentive aren't you, yes it will but staying dead or not? That depends on the test."**

"What if something sealed in my body?"

" **They will stay. The passing of the test will take your life, so you won't have life to lose."**

"I will be immortal… in a sense"

" **Yes, but only if you pass"**

'Immortality, huh? That can make the peace permanent. Moreover, I would have all the time to be powerful enough. Only I have to pass the test. I'll do it, I must do it. I'll pass the test I'll- wait a minute.'

He grinned for a moment then walked to Shinigami and took the grim chalice.

"I will take the test."

It was Shinigami's turn to grin

* * *

 **End of the Chapter**

 **Sorry I am late… and yes another cliffhanger. I'm not giggling I swear! But admit it, it makes the story more juicy and tasty.**


	5. a deal with death god

**Yo everyone, new chapter after I left you with another delicious torment aka cliffhanger… let's not make you wait any longer but first…**

 **I don't own Naruto**

"talk"

'think'

 **Else**

 **CHAPTER 4: A DEAL WITH DEATH GOD**

* * *

" **Remember, death should around you; not in you and not too far away to bless you with its power"**

Naruto reached and took the chalice, mind abuzz with what to do with it.

'A skull chalice and 'blood' of Shinigami in it, drinking the blood seems obvious but I don't think it's the answer.' He brought the chalice to his nose and took a whiff from it. 'Smells like decay… I see, this is 'death'. I shouldn't drink or 'take it inside of me', 'not far from you' so it should near me… hmm… 'around you'… ah I think I know the answer.'

He raised the chalice and poured the substance over himself. The substance evaporated and coated him then vanished with only a spiraled bone tattoo on his right forearm.

" **Well done, young Naruto; you passed the test. Make sure death is around you to bless with powers, but not in you to take you away."** One of the mirrors shimmered and brought to life and showed the body of Naruto **"You are free to go back to your body."**

"Thanks" he walked to the mirror and put his hand to it. When his hand passed through, he lifted his leg to step through it. However, before he passed he stopped by Shinigami's question.

" **You are fairly young; I thought mortals of your age are full of desire to live. But you don't seem like fear death; why is that?"**

He paused for a moment, and looked at the god. "There are things worse than death. I learned it hard way long ago, thing that makes you _want_ to die."

Naruto continued his way back to his body.

" **You are an interesting person Uzumaki Naruto."** Shinigami muttered to himself after Naruto passed through the mirror. **"More than the last death summoner was. It seems I'll watch you closer than him."**

 **MEANWHILE**

" **Naruto… no… no not you too"** Kyuubi was on the verge of tears, another thing he would laugh if someone told him a decade or so, other thing was him befriending a human. **'Love is something cursed it seems, the most you get hurt by those you love.'** He thought depressedly. He cared about the boy after he got to know him, maybe a little more than he should, but he couldn't help it; he was his light after long darkness some ambitious people threw him in, a fresh breath after suffering in loneliness. And he was no-

*gasp* 1

" **Naruto!"** tears finally rolled down his eyes

"Oww… not so loud!"

Kyuubi winced and closed his snout. Naruto sat in his mindscape; rubbing his head, feeling headache even in his mind.

"Ugh… How long was I out?"

" **Nearly half an hour, you should hurry, someone is coming"**

"What are you- oh right Mizuki's plot."

He opened his eyes outside and sensed around.

'This is not Mizuki… Iruka-sensei? What is he doing here? Anyhow its best no one know about my contact for now' he rolled and sealed the scroll to the hidden seal inside his dark purple zipper hoodie (he saw it when he was looking a way to hide his nearly radiant hair and brought it under a disguise) and kneeled near the forbidden scroll. pretending to be trying something in the scroll.

"There you are Naruto"

"Yes, you just came in time I finished learning a technique. You can test me now."

"Test you? What are you talking about?"

"Huh? Mizuki-sensei told me you two decided to put me on a stealth test. I was supposed to learn a technique from it."

Iruka looked at Naruto with confusion for a moment then realization dawned on him.

"Naruto, Mizuki-"

He cut off with some kunai impaling him on several areas.

"Iruka-sensei!"

Naruto ran to Iruka while weaved some chakra to cast a genjutsu on him, making him think he passed from pain. He kneeled near him and checked his vitals just to deceive Mizuki, who performed the attack on Iruka, then subtly pushed some chakra to air to disrupt Sandaime's Telescope technique and damage his crystal ball.

 **HOKAGE TOWER – HOKAGE'S OFFICE**

Sandaime cursed and leaped through his window to help Naruto against Mizuki.

 **SHACK NEAR VILLAGE WALLS**

Now truly alone, he turned to Mizuki; who smirked at him arrogantly.

"Now give me the scroll and I might let you live."

"Forgive me if I don't believe in you, you killed Iruka-sensei already."

Mizuki half-surprised half amusedly looked at Naruto and laughed.

"You are a smart little demon don't you? Ah and they didn't told you before didn't they?"

Naruto faked curiosity.

"13 years ago, Yondaime Hokage battled the Kyuubi but couldn't kill him; no human can kill a bijuu. So he did the next thing came to mind, sealed the beast into a newborn baby. You! You are that baby, you are the kyu-"

He felt a sharp pain in his back. Looking behind him, he saw another Naruto who impaled him with a kunai to the chest.

"I already know that Mizuki and you are mistaken; I only contain him, I'm not him."

"You… rotten… de-…" Mizuki heard a 'poof' behind him and breathed out his last breath.

'Sandaime is coming! I must hurry back to Iruka!'

Naruto ran back to Iruka, dispelled his genjutsu on him and kneeled next to him. It didn't took long for the man to awake.

"Naruto?"

"Iruka-sensei! Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, where is Mizuki?"

"My kage bunshin got rid of him, he is dead."

"Are _you_ alright then?"

"Yes, I am. However, we should hurry you to the hospital. You are injured."

"Alright. Before that; close your eyes"

Naruto closed his eyes and felt cloth on his brow. When opened them he saw Iruka tied his hitai-ate to his head.

"Congratulations Naruto. You are worthy to be a genin now."

Naruto smiled, this time genuinely, to Iruka who grinned back.

"Naruto!"

Sandaime appeared behind some bushes.

"Sandaime? What are you doing here? Anyway we don't have time, Iruka-sensei is injured.

He looked at the man and walked hurriedly towards them. Put his hands on both of them and flickered to the hospital

* * *

 **END OF CHAPTER**

 **1** **: I know, I know cliché and lame. When I previewed it slapped my forehead for lameness but decided against deleting it.**

 **I'm earlier than normal this time… For Christmas maybe? I dunno. and oddly didn't left a cliffhanger this time.**


	6. Great power requires great sacrifice

**Hi everyone, let me whip up another chapter for you. Timing may be wrong in some parts.**

"talk"

'think'

 **Else**

 **CH5: GREAT POWER REQUIRES GREAT SACRIFICE**

* * *

 **NEXT DAY**

He was going to be a genin in the end. Back to the leftmost desk in the backmost row, he sat.

" **You couldn't escape being a genin in the end."** Kyuubi said with an amused tone.

"I'll just send clones for D rank chores." Naruto absentmindedly replied. His mind is still wrapping around what happened after the Mizuki incident.

 **FLASHBACK**

They brought Iruka to the hospital; his injuries were serious but not vital so he could attend to the last day of class, then separated. Sandaime went to his office to finish off his work for today, Naruto went to his home and Iruka stayed at hospital for bandaging.

" **What happened after you signed the contact?"** Kyuubi asked after Naruto arrived at his home.

"Shinigami summoned my soul to his domain and tested me. I passed and became a death summoner."

" **Do you feel anything different?"**

"For now, nothing. However, I didn't summon anything or drew power, not that I know how but Shinigami suggested I can. I figured I have to experiment to learn. He also said the test killed me."

" **W-What?"**

"Actually he said it 'took my life' and 'because the test took my life I can't lose it'. My guess is the test made me 'immortal' by making me 'dead'. But something tells me I still can die, not by traditional means anymore but I still can. For now I want to experiment with them, now that Sandaime's crystal ball is broken, he can't watch me anymore." He sat and started to think.

''death should around me to bless me with its power' hmm… maybe the contact scroll have any info?' He unsealed the contact and continued his search. 'Hand seals… requires blood sacrifice' he coded the seals to his mind. 'Ah this seems promising… death siphon… focus on corpses inner death and pull it into yourself to fill yours… fresher corpses have less energy… no seals required… no chakra required… caster cannot move while draining… caster is vulnerable and can lose his life while siphoning…!'

"What?"

" **Huh? What is it?"**

"It seems there _is_ a way for me to die."

" **How?"**

"While draining death energy"

" **Is there a reason for you to drain?"**

"No. Maybe? I don't know, I should ask Shinigami."

" **Try hand seals?"**

Naruto sped through required hand seals in a moment, bit his finger and put his hand to ground

 **Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning technique)**

What came out shocked the two; it was a coffin that opened moments later. A man with spiky shoulder-length hair and black eyes with a white pupil walked out. He was also wearing Kazekage robes. Naruto understood who he is.

"Sandaime Kazekage"

The man came to his senses, looked around and spotted Naruto.

" **Someone else summoned me to this world again, but it seems I'm in control of my movements this time. Tell me why did you brought me back."**

Naruto's face was shocked for a moment more then a smirk replaced shock.

"I see. The death contact _is_ the strongest contact after all." He stated. Millions of ideas were flying around his mind.

" **Death contact?"** Kazekage asked, confused.

"Yes, a contact with pure land it seems. But you said someone brought you to back, who is that, another death summoner?"

" **No, at least I don't think so. He used a technique, Edo Tensei (impure world reincarnation), to bring me back from pure land."**

"Hmm… I guess there is nothing-" Naruto coughed and with horror, saw blood on his hand. The reason of his horror was, the blood was black and smelled rot. _**'Great power requires great sacrifice'**_ 'So this is the sacrifice?!'

" **Hey are you-"** With a puff of smoke Kazekage was back to Pure land and moments later Naruto lost consciousness.

" **Naruto!"** Kyuubi yelled in his cage then let out an exasperated sigh. **'Better put his body while he is gone.'** He thought and took control of Naruto's body.

 **GATE OF DEATH – SHINIGAMI'S THRONE**

Naruto gasped a breath and let it go slowly. "Shinigami… I wanted to speak to you."

The god looked amused **"Hello to you too Naruto. And I knew that, I was watching you."**

"Then you know what I want to know."

Shinigami thought a moment and replied. **"The summoning from pure land will require some of your death energy. Yes, while you can't die with body failure; there are some ways. First, when your death energy is depleted; another is when you are vulnerable from death siphon; and lastly by another death summoner. But you don't need to worry about last one."**

"why?"

" **There is only one more person became** _ **partially**_ **death summoner. The test has over 99% chance of failing. My 'blood' you poured over your head is a poison with surviving chance of 1%, add the fact that guessing the right method of applying; and getting the contact in the first place, you are the first summoner over a decade since last summoner's death."**

'1% change of survive? That must be the reason of putting it in forbidden scroll' "How did he died then?"

" **While death siphon restores your death energy, extended usage of summoning causes 'permanent' damage and increase in summoning energy requirement. In the end summoner will perish. There is a way to permanently stop this however."**

"Which is?"

" **The way to stop it is…"** Shinigami paused and looked at Naruto then smirked and continued. **"… Taking soul of the person you bonded most."**

* * *

 **END OF THE CHAPTER**

 **Back to cliffhangers, I'm trying not to smile but failing miserably. Anyway thanks for reading.**


	7. What i chose is-

**Another chapter, Thanks for reading.**

 **I don't own Naruto**

"Talk"

'Think'

 **Else**

 **CHAPTER 6: WHAT I CHOOSE IS…**

* * *

" **The soul must be a living one with its own body. The soul will be absorbed by yours so can't go to pure land and because of that cannot be summoned."**

'It can't be helped then' "I see"

" **Oh and now that you summoned a soul from pure land, your fate is sealed with the contact."**

'That doesn't sound good' "What does that mean?"

" **It means you are losing small parts of energy even when you are not summoning and getting 'damaged' from using death siphon."**

"So, to not die I must absorb the soul."

" **Yes. However the progress is slow, it would take decades to see effects."**

"Still in the end the time will come…"

" **Yes, it will. Tobirama died because of this, he chose that person over his life."**

'Hmm… then it cannot be helped, I will not doom anyone with that fate.' "Looks like I am going to share same fate with Tobirama then."

" **Suit yourself" 'What are you thinking… Naruto'**

 **END OF FLASHBACK**

He couldn't stop thinking after that, immortality and his dream or let _him_ die peacefully. He experimented with Death Siphon and successfully performed it. It was easy, you only needed to find the death energy (nox, from now on) in oneself and cover it to the corpse. Then nox flowed into their body and recharged them. He killed a crow and tried the siphon on it. In the end, he succeeded and went to bed.

" **What happened to the Scroll of Forbidden Seals I wonder? Your leader shouldn't left it lying in a forest, right?"** Kyuubi asked boredly, just to start a talk.

"No, I felt an anbu going to the forest's direction; he must've been ordered to fetch it." Naruto replied, sending his thoughts about yesterday night to back of his mind.

" **Oh? I must have been snoozing."**

"Yep, you were muttering about chasing rabbits." Naruto teased with a grin, laughed when Kyuubi sputtered in embarrassment and when the boy in the next row looked at him oddly, he gazed out of the window.

"Alright class, it's time to declare teams. Team 1; Kitare Takachi…"

Naruto droned off Iruka. He didn't cared about team formations, instead thinking possibilities about Death Siphon.

"I wonder would it be possible to siphon nox with kage bunshin." he asked to kyuubi who was boredly watching from his eyes.

" **Huh? Wha?"**

"Nox, Kage bunshin, stop chasing rabbits and focus for a moment." Kyuubi sent him a mental image of him slapping back of Naruto's head with his tail. Naruto grimaced but grinned nonetheless.

"Now, I was wondering if it was possible to absorb nox with kage bunshin."

" **How should I know? Try it when you have time."**

"Aww are you snappy because I embarrassed you?"

" **Come here and let me show you 'snappy'"** as much as sounding angry, Kyuubi couldnt stop a smirk forming on his face.

"Still, in theory it should be possible; Kage bunshin, in essence, is you. So there is a high change it can be done that-"

Shikamaru elbowed him lightly then pointed Iruka with his head.

"You are teamed with Sasuke and …"

"Haruno Sakura. Your Jonin teacher is Hatake Kakashi. Team 8…"

"…and Sakura. Good luck."

"Thanks"

"…Team 10; Nara Shikamaru…" Shikamaru raised his head a little. "…Akimichi Chouji…" Chouji smiled at Shikamaru. "…and Yamanaka Ino." Shikamaru raised his head fully with his mouth opened in silent horror then slammed his head to desk with a groan. Chouji put his hand to Shikamaru's shoulder in a comforting gesture.

"Yeah… good luck." Naruto stated with a smirk.

"Shut up you… Troublesome blonds" Shikamaru grunted from his desk, throttling the blond in his mind but couldn't find energy to attempt.

"Alright class, this is it. Your new teachers are going to take you away in a minute. Just sit and wait for them to come. Good day." Iruka left the class. A couple of minutes later a group of people came in the class.

"Team 10 ? Let's go"

"Team 5 ? You are with me…"

Only team 7 left. Sakura tried to talk with Sasuke; Naruto read a scroll while throwing glances to outside and Sasuke lied on his bundled arms, sneaked glances on Naruto every one in a while. The reason..?

 **FLASHBACK – SEVERAL YEARS AGO – ACADEMY**

It was a Taijutsu (Martial arts) exam with students against students, the match was Naruto vs Sasuke. They were watching, making other to take initiate and charge for the first attack while Sasuke's fangirls cheering for him and trying to belittle Naruto, who ignored them.

"Why aren't you fighting loser? Scared?" Sasuke taunted arrogantly, smirking and thinking the battle ended before it started.

"Do I look like scared Sasuke?" 'That game huh? Let's see what can you do against someone who can play it too.' "or without your clan's pinky eyes you can't see anything?" He added with a fake mocking tone, watching Sasuke's reaction.

Sasuke's eyes darkened and with a snarl, he charged at Naruto who was deciding how to approach the charging problem.

'I shouldn't simply crush him. Simply play a little better than him will do.'

He deflected Sasuke's enraged right straight with his palm and slapped his stomach lightly to half mock him, half point his opening in defense. Sasuke threw another reckless punch with his left hand. Naruto caught it, pulled it to disorient him then elbowed him in the solar plexus to worsen his imbalance further. He, then, pulled same arm further to spin him, hooked his feet with his left leg then shoved him, knocking him down in less than 30 seconds and won the battle.

Everyone watched in shock, not believing Sasuke's loss. Fangirls called fake and demanded a rematch after they recovered from shock. Naruto and ignored them and extended a hand for Sasuke, who slapped it away and get up himself, throwing a death glare at Naruto who wasn't even looking at him anymore, losing interest after the action.

"Winner is Naruto. Next match is between…"

Naruto shoved his hands inside his pockets and walked to the nearest tree. Sasuke, still enraged from his loss runned after Naruto who simply sat down under the tree.

"Yes, Sasuke?"

"Naruto, don't underestimate me and fight me fully!"

Naruto sighed and sat up, then molded his chakra and put his hand on Sasuke to paralyze him.

"You really are blind are you not? Fine I'll enlighten you after academy. Until then…"

He pulled his hand back, walked to another tree, and sat down.

* * *

 **END OF CHAPTER**

 **Thank you for reading… and try not to combust me with your thoughts, Please?**


	8. Sasuke's change

**Sorry I am late. I was sick. Anyway, now that I'm better let's get my ass back to work.**

 **I don't own Naruto**

"talk"

'think'

 **Else**

 **CH 7: SASUKE'S CHANGE**

* * *

 **AFTER TEST**

The class went back their classroom to continue their lessons. Naruto was making his way then Sasuke intercepted him.

"Tell me what you must now before I lost my interest." In reality, he was very curious. First, he defeated him like he was nothing, then he put his hand on his shoulder and he was defenseless. He may be arrogant but not fool; he could see that the blond has secrets, he wouldn't be surprised if some of them answered his questions.

"No, not here. Come to Naka Shrine after the academy, there I'll answer your questions."

"Do you think someone is watching us?"

"No, I _know_ they do." He started walking toward his desk.

"*sigh* Fine" Sasuke muttered and he too went to his desk.

 **AFTER SCHOOL - NAKA SHRINE**

Sasuke left his backpack at home and went to the shrine. Not seeing Naruto, he went to sit at one of the stairs.

"You came, I see." Naruto hopped down from a tree.

"Yes, now talk."

Naruto smiled, and then a kunai came from nowhere and stabbed a seemingly random shadow. The 'shadow' changed to a humanoid shape wearing a blank mask with kanji for 'ne' on its brow. Another Naruto came from forest. Sasuke was sure now, Naruto was more than what they see.

"Let's get to the tablet room, another will take his place." Naruto said while walking into the shrine.

Sasuke looked at the man who started burning.

"Their leader is paranoiac." Naruto stated without turning back. Sasuke glanced at the corpse a moment more and followed Naruto inside. They went to a stone slab.

"Open it"

Sasuke frowned and looked at Naruto then muttered something while looking down.

"what?"

"I said I don't know how!"

Naruto blinked and sighed. "Just put your hand on it and send some chakra."

Sasuke looked at Naruto with surprise. "Why didn't you open then?"

"Seals require Uchiha chakra to activate."

"How do you know what is inside then?"

"I said I can't open it, someone else opened it."

"who?"

"I don't remember"

Sasuke frowned but didn't said anything and poured some chakra to the tablet. Some dust and scrapping sounds later, a hidden way down revealed. After they got inside Naruto told Sasuke to close the way. They walked to some chamber with a stone tablet.

"When you activate your sharingan, read this tablet" Sasuke shot Naruto an expectant look.

"*sigh* fine" Naruto sat to floor and gestured Sasuke to do the same. "Uchiha Massacre"

He paused. "Tell me Sasuke, why do you think your brother killed your clan."

"That man, he said to test his _power_ , to see his limits." Sasuke spat venomously.

"While that may be so for shinobi but what about civilians? They were defenseless. Also there are other ways to test one self's power. To hunt strong shinobi who went rouge for example, they would be better test than your clan, won't they?"

"He said they were weak, and he left me alive because he didn't thought I was strong enough to even bothered to kill."

"So were other children of your clan. No, think harder, why didn't he kill you?"

Sasuke thought but there was no answer. "Why did he massacred our clan then? Why didn't he killed me?" Sasuke asked, felling broken.

"Uchiha were planning a coup d'état, to rebel against Konoha to take leadership. Itachi was a double agent for Konoha and Uchiha. Sandaime did his best to calm the tension and dissuade the clan from rebelling but your father's pride didn't let it go. He wanted an Uchiha to lead Konoha, and if he waited a couple of years more Itachi would take the hokage hat." Naruto sighed and looked at Sasuke who was watching him with wide eyes. "Shisui suggested using his eyes to change Uchiha elders' view. Sandaime accepted but Shisui got intercepted, attacked and got one of his eyes stolen…" Sasuke glowered and asked with barely restrained rage "who?"

"A village elder, Danzou"

"How do you know all this?" Sasuke looked at Naruto with mixed emotions, suspicion was the biggest part.

"I had my clones watch around this village since I was 5, Sasuke." ' _He_ made me do that, to train me in spying, but you don't need to know that part.'

Sasuke opened his mouth to continue but Naruto, again, stopped Sasuke and continued.

"…Shisui fled but Danzou's men caught again. Itachi rescued him." Naruto sighed again. "Shisui brought them to Naka River, entrusted Itachi with his remaining eye and suicided. That triggered Itachi's mangekyou. Although Sandaime wanted to continue his tries at negotiation with Uchiha both Itachi and Danzou knew they were past that point."

Naruto paused and closed his eyes. "Danzou ordered your brother to massacre your clan." Sasuke gasped. "But why didn't Itachi killed me?" he asked. Naruto opened his eyes and looked at Sasuke

"He thought a way out of this for days but couldn't come with one. Desperate, he made a deal with Danzou; he would kill his heart and massacre his clan in exchange of one life, your life." Sasuke's eyes got misty and he asked with a cracked voice

"Why? Why didn't he killed me? Why didn't he said anything?"

"Because, he love you too much to kill you. He showed you the massacre to hate him instead of doing something stupid, killed entire clan so a war in which you may die won't start, everything for you." By now Sasuke was openly sobbing, Naruto sighed once more.

"He also wants to die by your hand." Sasuke gasped and looked at Naruto with horror.

"why?!"

"He still draws breath but died inside. With dying by your hand, he wanted to give you a parting gift and amend for his sins." Naruto took a breath and sat up. "Don't do something foolish with this information. I told you this because I can empathize with him about protecting his precious person but I thought what he had done would only damage you further in the end."

 **FLASHBACK END**

* * *

 **END OF CHAPTER**

 **Thanks for reading.**


	9. team 7 part 1

**Ugh… I have to run a course of math with mother for ALES (some kind of exam). My head hurts…**

 **Anyway.**

 **I don't own Naruto**

 **You know legend**

 **CH 8: TEAM 7 PART 1**

* * *

Even though he didn't look at Sasuke, both Naruto and Kyuubi knew he was throwing glances at Naruto.

" **I understand that you respect Itachi for things he does for his precious brother and for that respect you told him about the truth of Uchiha massacre, why did you sealed his memories of that evening? And why not his feelings?"**

"I knew his hatred would get better of him. He would try to go after Danzo and get himself killed, to stop that I sealed his memories and left his feelings to curb his arrogance a little. This way he knows he lost to me, there are people he can lost to and just being an Uchiha wont grant him success."

" **When will you unseal his memories then?"**

"When I defect, maybe sooner. There is no Danzo to corrupt him now anyway."

Naruto killed Danzo when the war hawk started to watched him too close, disguised as one of his root anbu, got near him to give him a scroll, stole back Shisui's sharingan and used a genjutsu to stop his heart. Then before the reverse tetragram seal activated, siphoned the chakra off of it. He, then, deleted his chakra traces to make it look natural. No one suspected him as far as he knew."

" **What happened to root I wonder."**

"After Danzo's death, they disbanded as far as I know. Some may have joined anbu."

While Naruto was conversing with Kyuubi, Sasuke had his own thoughts.

'I remember he bested me but how… and this feelings… I am supposed to hate Itachi, he destroyed our clan but why I feel like there is so much more? *sigh* this is so confusing… and the dead last… no, Naruto… he knows something, I know he does, but… must be sure before confront him.'

As for Sakura… she was still trying to make Sasuke talk with her…

 **A COUPLE HOURS LATER…**

The door opened and a man looked inside. He long and slim, had gravity defying silver hair, a hitai-ate that tied over his left eye and a face mask that covered rest of his face. All in all, he was looking more like a scarecrow than a man.

"Team 7? I am Hatake Kakashi, your instructor. Meet me at the roof in 10 minutes." Kakashi stated and disappeared with a swirl of leaves.

'That scarecrow is our teacher? And what kind of teacher would be late for hours!' Sakura inwardly raged but sighed outside and sat up.

'He looks like a lazy fool but…' Sasuke glanced at Naruto '… looks can be deceiving. Let's give him a shot.' He, too sat up.

'He is infamous for his lateness after all. I'm not surprised, annoyed but not surprised.' He sat up and they all went to roof.

 **10 MINUTES LATER.**

"Let's start with introduction, tell us your names, likes, dislikes, hobbies and dreams. You start cherry gum." Kakashi pointed Sakura, who popped vein on her brow but restrained herself.

"Can you start first sensei? you are the most unfamiliar to us."

"Me? Well… My name is Hatake Kakashi. I don't want to share my likes and dislikes, you can't understand my dreams… and I have hobbies." Kakashi finished lazily.

'only thing we got is his name…' Sasuke and Sakura thought while Naruto was not even listening. Kakashi looked at Sakura, she rolled her eyes.

"I'm Haruno Sakura. What I like is…" she glanced at Sasuke who pretended she wasn't there. She sulked for a moment, then continued. "my hobbies are…" another glance, same reaction. "my dream is…" blush and another glance… no reaction.

"what about your dislikes?" Kakashi asked absentmindedly, orange book is in his hand. She focused back.

"Ino-pig and Naruto!" she screamed. Everyone looked at Naruto who didn't seem like heard her. Then like he felt their eyes, he looked at them.

"huh? What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Everyone sweat dropped, he didn't hear that?

"anyway… ducky, you are next." Kakashi pointed Sasuke.

'du-? Oh my hair…' Sasuke's right eye twitched. "Name's Sasuke. I don't have many likes or dislikes. My dream…no, ambition is to ki-" Sasuke cut himself then looked to ground. He sighed and continued "My dream is to find answers."

'answers?' Kakashi and Sakura thought while Naruto didn't have any reaction.

"good. Sunshine?" he looked to Naruto.

"I'm Naruto." He finished, they blinked.

"likes and all?" Kakashi asked.

"I don't imagine we are genin yet. Until its official, all you need to know is my name."

'he is much more perceptive than what academy reported. I better tell this to Sandaime.' Kakashi thought.

"what are you talking about Naruto? Of course we are genin now!" Sakura loudly asked, but Naruto only glanced at her for a moment then ignored her.

Before Sakura bodily attack Naruto, Kakashi interrupted her.

"well... it's more like a survival test. Meet me at training ground seven at 6:00 AM tomorrow. By the way I suggest you don't eat breakfast, you will just puke it out." Kakashi disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Sakura turned to Sasuke.

"Sasuke-kun do you want to have dinner together to celebrate out team?"

"no" he looked to the spot where Naruto were but he was already gone.

 **NEXT DAY - AROUND 6 AM**

Sakura came near the training ground, there was a red bridge. She looked around, not seeing anyone she sat to bridge and leaned her back to one of its bars. She was napping before long.

 **6:15 AM**

Sasuke arrived at the bridge and saw a sleeping Sakura. He groaned and sat to another part of the bridge.

 **10 AM**

"Sorry I am late. A black cat crossed my… where is Naruto." Kakashi appeared with a puff of smoke and looked around.

"he hadn't come as you can see." Sakura replied irritably. Kakashi ignored her tone

"let's wait for 15 minutes then I'll look for him." He replied.

 **10 MINUTES LATER**

"sorry, I overslept a little." It was a lie, he sent a kage bunshin when it was 6:AM. It dispelled when it saw Kakashi's arrival. Sakura looked like she was inches away from killing Naruto.

He wasn't wearing his normal purple hoodie, changed it with a black t shirt, had black shinobi pants and black sandals. His hair, normally under his hood was spiky with one of the locks was over his right eye.

"Let's get inside and start the test." Kakashi gestured them go inside.

They went to a clearing with three logs. Kakashi brought a clock from his pocket and set it.

"you have until 1 PM to get these bells." He pulled two bells from his ninja pouch. Then tied them to his waist.

"come at me with intent to kill, only then you may have a chance."

* * *

 **END OF CHAPTER**

 **Late, I know but the exam is pressing my hand. Anyway I will try to continue but frequency would be low. The exam is at march, bear with me until then. Btw leave a review if you can, I want to know if I am doing good or not.**


	10. Team 7 part 2

**Managed to find/create some time. Let's get started**

 **I don't own naruto**

 **CH9: TEAM 7 PART 2**

* * *

"Also one who didn't get a bell will go back to academy for further training."

There was a moment of pause for two genin to realize what Kakashi said. The third, however, just watched boredly.

"But wouldn't that be dangerous for you, sensei?" Sakura asked.

"A ninja's life is a dangerous one, Sakura." Kakashi replied lightly, reading his orange book already.

"But-"

"Do you want to be a ninja?"

"yes, but-"

"then do as I say." Kakashi finished while looking at her who flinched and stopped arguing. Kakashi then looked at Sasuke, he had a glint of excitement in his eyes, and Naruto, he was looking at his right.

"Start at 3. 1… 2… 3!" Sakura and Sasuke rushed to forest. Naruto just stood and stared at Kakashi. He narrowed his eye.

"Aren't you going to hide Naruto?"

"A jonin against three fresh genin candidates. Isn't something wrong here?"

'Much more perceptive indeed. Will he understand the real test I wonder?' Kakashi thought while looked like nonchalant and bored as always.

"No, nothing is wrong. It is procedure."

Another Naruto was watching them from a treetop.

" **nonsense"** Kyuubi added his cent.

"Yeah. Still, I want to see where this will lead. Let's play for now.' Naruto replied. He sent a mental command to his clone to wrap this up and dispel.

"I see, *sigh* Alright then." Naruto vanished with a puff of smoke. Kakashi's eye widened

'Kage bunshin? Since when? Looks like there is more to naruto than what academy shows… I should tell Sandaime about this. At least I evaded the shoot it seems. Now, let's wait a little before test them.' Kakashi thought and returned to his book. He started giggling before long.

 **Meanwhile**

Sasuke was confused.

He had rigged the clearing with traps while Kakashi's attention was on Naruto. He thought about throwing a shuriken to trigger it but decided against it. He decided to use them to support his fight instead. Then saw him vanishing with a puff of smoke. He looked around for him, but couldn't find him. He looked back to Kakashi and threw a handful of shuriken towards him. It looked like they pierced Kakashi and fell him but Kakashi turned to a log after a moment.

"It is rude to attack someone who hadn't brought their guard up, Sasuke" a voice told behind him.

He whipped back and sent a fast right punch to Kakashi's face who caught the punch without even looking at it. He was still reading his book so Sasuke tried with his left to Kakashi's abdomen but that was blocked by Kakashi's elbow. What was worse was he didn't even look up from his book. Sasuke used his grip to perform a high kick to his head. Kakashi bowed his head to avoid getting hit. Sasuke reached for bells when Kakashi was distracted from evading his kick. Seeing this Kakashi threw Sasuke and jumped back to create some distance. Sasuke threw a kunai towards Kakashi who dodged it. But Sasuke smirked when that kunai trigged a trap. He started hand seals while Kakashi was busy with dodging.

"you are not going to let me read my book, don't you?" Kakashi asked rhetorically. Then put it back to his ninja pouch, only to see Sasuke finish weaving hand seals.

" **Fire Style: Grand Fireball"**

'Interesting, a genin did not supposed to have enough chakra to cast an elemental ninjutsu. First Naruto and now Sasuke, but you need to do more than that to pass this test.' Kakashi thought and hided underground with a hand seal.

Sasuke looked around for Kakashi after the jutsu died down.

'where is he? There is-' he was cut off with a hand pulling him underground.

"I must admit you are good for a genin candidate. You managed to force me put my book away and nearly got the bells." Kakashi summarized. "But in the end, 'nearly' isn't enough." He pulled his book back and walked to a random way while giggling.

Kakashi found Sakura and cast a basic genjutsu on her.

She got his and fainted afterwards.

Kakashi sweatdropped and read his book while looking for naruto

 **Half an hour later**

Sasuke had stopped trying to get out after five or so minutes and just waited for someone to find him. He heard some hustling in front of him, Sakura came out of the bushes.

"Sakura-"

Scream, thump.

Sakura screamed and fainted.

Sasuke wanted to facepalm but his hands were underground… his nose was starting to get itchy too.

 **Another half an hour later**

This was how Naruto found them. He first rubbed his eyes then lightly facepalmed while grinning. Sasuke definitely and absolutely did not pouted. He shook Sakura who startled awake then looked back to him and screamed again. Before she fainted again naruto lightly slapped her and told her to help him dig Sasuke instead of fainting. She grouchily helped him.

"I say let's truce until we get bells. We don't have chance against him one by one" Naruto suggested. It wouldn't take long for him to overpower Kakashi and take bells himself but he wanted to make Sandaime think he have somewhat normal life. So, he tried to be like a normal genin for his sake.

"I agree, he is strong, stronger than us. But maybe not combined." Sasuke agreed. He learned from Naruto that being an Uchiha did not solved all problems. He couldn't remember how exactly he did however. Now that his pride curbed he could think and stay calm better.

'Just like he used to be' he shook his head and decided to bury that thought a deep part of his mind.

Seeing that boys (Sasuke) was working together Sakura decided to join too.

"Our objective is taking the bells, not besting Kakashi. We should distract him and take the bells. Here is the plan…"

 **An hour later**

Kakashi came back to the logs, where they started. He turned a new page then dodged some kunai and shuriken came from forest. He put his book away as a kick from now identified Sasuke swung to his face. He glanced to forest to see it was Sakura who was sending those projectiles.

'Sasuke is attacking and Sakura is closing his openings from afar. Good tactic, but where is Naruto?'

Then his question answered when naruto took Sasuke's place and Sasuke started weaving hand seals.

'Nice teamwork guys.' Kakashi thought while getting ready to substitute with a log but another Naruto interrupted him. He threw that Naruto away and substituted with a log. Before anyone can do anything alarm bell rung. He checked the bells, they were there.

"Looks like you lost guys." He called with a happy voice.

"Think again sensei." naruto replied and put his hand to his pocket and pulled two bells. Kakashi's eye widened and looked at the bells on his belt, they vanished in a puff of smoke.

"When?" He asked, impressed.

"When I interrupted you substitution." Naruto replied, grinning.

"Good job Naruto. So, who is going back to academy?" Kakashi asked.

Naruto thought a moment and gave the bells to Sasuke and Sakura.

"But why? You were the one who did the most." Sakura asked.

"I don't care if I am a genin or not. We will see each other some other time maybe." 'also I don't imagine Sandaime would let me go academy for another year. When ether I like it or not I'll be a genin. Another advantage of being a jinchuriki.'

"Luckily, you don't have to choose because you all… pass" Kakashi said with an eye smile

* * *

 **END OF CHAPTER**

 **There you go. Leave a review maybe? Or follow/favorite?**


	11. Kyuubi's name, missions

**Thanks for reviews.**

 **Ages are around cannon (dragonking300)**

 **I need a beta reader. I'm sure your eyes are bleeding when you read this story.**

 **I don't own naruto**

 **You know legend**

 **CH 10: KYUUBI'S NAME, MISSIONS**

* * *

"We passed?" Sakura asked. "What about bells?"

"I believe you did good enough. Even if you couldn't get bells, you showed good teamwork. The test's real meaning was would you work together against odds."

"So you lied to us" Sasuke asked.

"Not everyone will be truthful to you Sasuke, we ninja do everything in our arsenal to triumph. Lies are nothing out of ordinary. You must always see what is underneath the underneath." Kakashi explained.

"Let's meet at this red bridge at 7AM tomorrow. Team, dismissed." He pulled his book and went to a random way.

" **Your new teacher is an odd one."** Kyuubi muttered.

"Yes, he is. His name too doesn't help." Naruto commented.

" **Scarecrow… who would name their child scarecrow anyway."**

"Speaking of names, I don't remember you told me your name. Kyuubi can't be it."

Kyuubi paused for a while, Naruto thought he touched a sensitive spot but before he apologized Kyuubi interrupted

" **Yes that is not my real name, my real name is…"** Kyuubi sighed **"K-Kurama"** he ended brokenly.

"Are you alright?" Naruto entered a deserted side street and teleported to his bedroom. He, then, sat down and concentrated to get in his mindscape.

" **My name was given to me by my father… the sage of the six paths. He died shortly, but we loved him. Hearing that name makes me remember him. Only my siblings know my real name, and now you too."** He ended sorrowfully.

"I see." Naruto sighed. "Then let me call you something else… Tsukimaru"

" **Tsukimaru… better than 'nine tails' I like it."**

Naruto smiled and started to fade but Kyuubi- Tsukimaru- stopped him.

" **Thank you naruto, you are a good friend."** Tsukimaru thanked with a grin.

"I'm glad you think so, Tsukimaru" Naruto grinned and disappeared.

" **He is the one you were talking about, isn't he?... old man…"** Kyuubi muttered and started to nap.

 **NEXT DAY 7 AM**

Sakura wanted to slap her forehead.

Kakashi wasn't here… no one was here.

She cursed Kakashi and sat on edge of the bridge but too annoyed to nap, she waited.

 **7:30 AM**

Sasuke arrived, looked around, cursed Kakashi and leaned to a tree nearby.

 **11:30 AM**

Kakashi arrived with a puff of smoke

"Sorry I a-" Kakashi started…

"YOU ARE LATE" … and interrupted by Sakura. He sheepishly rubbed back of his head.

"An old-" Kakashi tried again and…

"LIAR" … interrupted by Sakura again. He sweatdropped.

"Where is-"

"Behind you." Naruto cut him and smiled.

"Can you stop doing that!" Kakashi jumped and turned to glare him. Naruto heard Tsukimaru's snickers.

"What are we doing today?" Naruto ignored him.

Kakashi sighed, no one was listening to him.

"Let's go to hokage tower for a mission." Kakashi said dejectedly.

 **HOKAGE TOWER**

"Team 7 is reporting for a mission." Kakashi said professionally

"Oh, welcome Kakashi. It is nice to see you with a team at last." Hiruzen said like a grandfather he is.

'He also wasn't passing any genins, right?" Naruto rhetorically said to Tsukimaru who sent him an image of him shrugging.

"I have a good starter mission for you, here is the scroll." He handed Kakashi a scroll with a big, fat D. Kakashi read the scroll and eye smiled to Hiruzen.

"Tora? Starter?" Kakashi asked while eye smiling. Sakura and Sasuke looked obviously while Naruto rubbed his brow.

"Yes. See you later." Hiruzen sent them away.

'Of all the missions, it had to be 'Catch Tora the Demon'. Sometimes I forget Sandaime can be very cruel."

" **Is Tora the fire leader's wife's cat?"** Tsukimaru asked while snickering.

"yes?"

" **good luck"** he finished.

"Thanks" Naruto deadpanned. 'a subtle genjutsu will solve this problem.' He thought.

 **LATER**

"This is scarecrow. Are everyone in position? Roger." A static voice said.

"This is Sa-" another voice groaned "- Cherry Gum. I am in position, roger."

"This du- forget it." Static voice angrily retorted "I am in position, roger."

"This is Blonde Stalker… I want to slap you, scarecrow. I am in position, roger." Naruto pinched bridge of his nose and said defeatedly, Kakashi was such an overkill. This is Tora, yes, but you could think they were infiltrating an enemy village with Kakashi's arrangements. They even have a teaser to stun it. They were supposed to bring the _cat_ , not its corpse.

"We will begin at 3." 'Scarecrow' instructed. "1… 2… 3!" they all acted.

Sakura ran to the cat.

Sasuke threw kunai to possible escape routes.

Naruto cast a genjutsu to cat to make it look like he has a fish in his hand.

Kakashi…

Kakashi turned next page of his orange book and giggled like a pervert.

The cat avoided Sakura and ran to Naruto. He lifted the cat and cast a calming genjutsu on it to stop its struggles. Everyone looked at Kakashi and sweatdropped.

"You could help, you know." Naruto couldn't stop commenting.

Kakashi looked up. "Did you said something Naruto?" he said with fake obliviousness.

Naruto sighed. "No, I didn't. Let's go back to hokage tower."

 **HOKAGE TOWER**

"Here you are my little precious, don't worry mommy is here" A plump – alright… fat – woman cooed while smothering the cat to her face. Everyone cringed and pitied the cat, no wonder it was running so much. After a little more squeezing, the woman gave the mission fee and dragged the traumatized cat back to fire castle.

"Congratulations team 7 with your very first mission. Do you wish more missions?"

"How about finishing for today?" Naruto asked hopefully.

"Do some training?" Sasuke asked, irritated.

"Have a team lunch for team bonding?" Sakura looked at Sasuke with flying hearts who ignored her.

"Of course, Hokage-sama. What are the missions?" Kakashi ignored them and eye smiled at Hiruzen. Sasuke scowled, Sakura was heartbroken, Naruto groaned and hung his head.

"Well, they are cleaning Inuzuka's cages, walk their dogs, painting Akimichi's fences and…"

"TORAAA"

"…and catching Tora again." Sandaime smiled at them.

"No Tora" team seven – except Kakashi – shouted.

"We will take Tora." Kakashi eye smiled 'pay back for ignoring me.' A chibi Kakashi made a victory sign in his head. Genins groaned.

"I really want to slap you, scarecrow…" Naruto muttered.

"Did you said something Naruto" Kakashi lazily asked while eye smiling at him.

"I said let's get this over with." Naruto angrily retorted.

"Good, let's go." Kakashi pulled his orange book.

* * *

 **End of Chapter**

 **Sorry for long wait. I hope you like it.**


	12. Showing Faces

**Here is another chapter. Time for a peek at you-know-which organization ;).**

 **You know the legend.**

 **CH: 11 SHOWING FACES**

* * *

Naruto broke his meditative stance and heaved a deep sigh. He got up and went go drink a glass of water. He could practically feel Tsukimaru's awe and sent a representative of a fall down with a grin. It took moments for him to recover and when he did, he mock-clapped him with a smirk.

" **I still can't get used to your prowess in yin release. To counter a genjutsu cast from a Mangekyou Sharingan… It may even surpass Nidaime Mizukage."** Tsukimaru rambled in awe.

"Thank you, Thank you. I try." He replied with a little annoyance.

" **But the thing you did to Itachi…"** He got flustered a little then cursed himself for feeling that way. **"…Why?"**

"I reminded him 'the best known' and 'the best' are two different things. My prowess in yin may be grand but there may be others will or _are_ better than me in that topic; never assume you will be the best. Even if you are, you will not be forever. The last part…"

He grinned and took a sip from his water. "That was to remind him that there always something to surprise you… and wanted to see how would he react." He chuckled.

 **GOOD OLD FLASHBACK**

There was a man clad in pitch black robes and a same colored cape. He was in Amegakure and Obito and Zetsu was having a meeting. He put a blank, black mask, deepened his voice to make it more ominous (1) with chakra and sneaked inside.

"…killed another of his squad mate." Zetsu half reported, half complained. That made him blink; he didn't know the being had emotions.

"Again? That is fifth time, that man is playing with my nerves… I may kill him directly if this continues." 'They must be talking about Kakuzu…' The man thought.

"Yo" The man greeted, effect was instant. Obito nearly whipped is head to his direction and Zetsu stood to a defensive stance.

"Who are you?" Obito asked with a narrowed eye. The man just chuckled humorlessly.

"What will telling you who am I do?" he saw Zetsu trying to sneak behind him, he cast a genjutsu on him to paralyze him. The being stiffened, Obito cursed under his breath.

"What do you want?" Obito decided to cut the chase.

"Straight to the business I see… what I want is to join Akatsuki." The man replied. Obito got up and walked to the man.

"Why is that?" 'Not a bad idea actually… of course if he won't cause headaches.' Obito thought while walking to the man. He again chuckled humorlessly.

"Because my dear friend Tobi is in too." The mask did not show it but the man's grin was clear. Obito narrowed his eyes further.

"And if I were to refuse?" Obito asked and got ready for a confrontation. The man snickered like he knew a secret he didn't know, all the more annoyance for Obito.

"If you were to refuse…" He saw man's eyes glow with an icy hue and felt himself stiffen, but he was not in fear. The man stood in front of him and pulled a kunai from his robe. He brought kunai to his throat and to his horror it touched. The man gave it a little cut and withdrew the kunai, some blood leaked from the wound but healed in seconds due to Hashirama's cells transplanted to him.

"…You would be sorry… Obito." Now he was terrified; a man who can deactivate his intangibility and knew his real name. He must watch whoever this man is, if he could leave this place with his life intact. He cast a glance at Zetsu to see it was still paralyzed, he cursed again.

"…But if you were to accept…" he felt the man broke his paralyzing jutsu, he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "… I'm sure we both will be happy." He finished and sat on a chair reserved for 'Yahiko', Nagato's tendou.

"My prowess is sufficient, right? what would you lose anyway." He lightly said. Obito and Zetsu looked at each other.

"Welcome to Akatsuki, then, but who are you?" Obito asked. Now that the threat was gone, he couldn't help but be curious. The man grunted.

"My name isn't really important, but call me In'ei(2) if you want." He told them, then paused and continued "What is important is I know all plans…" He looked at Zetsu when he told that. A flash of terror passed on the being's face but changed to neutral before Obito can see it, he looked at both of them before shrugging. "…and I can't join to Akatsuki yet."

"Why?" Obito asked.

"This is just a host, I'm not in Ame, and I am not even defected, yet." Both of the Akatsuki members' eyes widened. a host? A host could very well kill them before other Akatsuki members realize?

"When will you join then?" Zetsu asked this time.

"I am waiting for a certain event to happen. Until then this host must suffice." In'ei said and stood up. "Where is Itachi?" he asked while walking to the door

"They were around Fire borders with Kisame, they were supposed to spy on Konoha and Kyuubi's jinchuriki." Zetsu said before sitting down. It must speak with Inei, there was someone coming to its mind, but it had to be sure.

 **HOURS LATER – FIRE BORDERS**

It was night time. Two people were camping. Remains of some lambs told the two people had dinner. One long, strangely blue-skinned man was sleeping while shorter, pale one was taking the night guard. He heard some bushed rustle and tensed, listening for any potential threats. A couple moments without any sound later he got relaxed, but a noted kunai stabbed on the tree he was leaning to removed all slackness and he tensed again. He got up and reached for the note

'come to me Itachi … -I'

He burned the note and looked around. He saw a shadow shift and lunged for it. They went some 20 feet and he lost the shadow. He looked around but couldn't see it anymore.

"Hello Itachi" the voice came behind him.

He looked to his right without turning before slowly turned. It was a man clad in blacks. He just looked at the man questioningly.

"I was wondering why did you slaughtered your clan…" Itachi gave him a dry look and started to walk back to camp.

"Because I wanted to test my limits." He said absently. In'ei tailed him.

"With children? your family but not high ranked criminals? Try again." In'ei challenged. Itachi had an irritated look on his face.

"Got fed up with them." He did try again to shake off the man. The man clicked his teeth and obviously shook his head.

"And why not before? No, you got forced." That made him stop. He turned to the man.

"What do you want" He asked.

"Danzo told me everything before he died, your bargain over your brother included." Itachi narrowed his eyes, killing Danzo, much less making him tell you that kind of info required some real skill. This man was looking like unassuming but seemed like dangerous.

"You tried to shoulder everything yourself but it isn't going to do you- you and your brother- any good." Itachi looked down.

"I was desperate; it was that or entire Uchiha's slaughter. I chose lesser evil." He muttered.

"Your brother deserves to know." When last letter came out of his mouth Itachi lunged at him. But In'ei cast his paralysis jutsu. Undeterred, Itachi activated his left Mangekyou and caught In'ei's eyes with his own.

"Tsukuyomi"

It was a world of blacks and reds. He was tied to a cross and Itachi had a blade.

"I am sorry but I cant let you tell him and foil my plans."

"Why dont you want to understand? I want to help you but leaving him in the dark would end with disaster." In'ei argued but Itachi ignored him and raised his blade

"You will be stabbed for 72 hours." Itachi trusted the blade but before it pierced naruto interrupted him.

"Before continuing your course, I suggest you to look at yourself calmly." Itachi looked at him confusedly before looking down and got surprised by what he saw. HE was tied down and IN'EI had the sword.

"H-How?" Itachi asked, Tsukuyomi never got countered before. In'ei ignored the question.

"You are trying to do everything yourself, thinking you know everything." He dropped the blade. "you are doomed to fail in this way. Sasuke would sell his soul to demons to kill you, and then he would be empty and easily dyed. What would happen if someone who know the Truth of the Uchiha massacre told him that? He would be easily manipulated. You didn't thought about the future of Sasuke enough."

He walked to Itachi to unbind him, who was looking to the ground emotionlessly. "I want to help you because I respect you." He unbounded him and put his hand under his chin to raise his head, Itachi looked at him emotionlessly.

"Let me help you" then he kissed him.

The shock caused Itachi to drop Tsukuyomi. He looked around but couldn't see In'ei. He touched his lips and cursed. He could swear he heard snickers in the forest. He stomped back to camp in anger.

 **GOOD OLD FLASHBACK END**

"Anyway I must sleep. We are going to start doing C ranks tomorrow… hopefully." He remembered the D ranks with a shiver. The dog poops still somewhat hot in his head…

* * *

 **End of Chapter**

 **1)** Yeah,yeah clishé and too much like obito, i know.

 **2)** Means 'shadow/shade' if anyone cares.

 **I am sure most of you are thinking 'what a twist' at the kissing part but don't worry, it was a prank. Sorry for long w8 btw.**


	13. Way to Waves

**Again with the long wait… Sorry y'all, I am in some hard times… I could write a couple lines of reasons which most of you won't even read. So let's skip that part and come to the main thing: story. (BTW How much of you continue to follow this story if I were to make it a bisexual one?)**

 **(You know the legend. No? check the first chapter)**

 **Don't own naruto. Do I look like Japanese?**

 **CH12: WAY TO WAVES**

* * *

 **NEXT DAY - THE RED BRIDGE**

Team 7 was waiting for their sensei.

Sakura was nagging Sasuke for a date with him… but would have better luck with a stone.

Sasuke was pretending to napping over Sakura's nagging. After 15 minutes of ignoring didn't work, he tried that… for 5 minutes… his hopes were diminishing.

And Naruto was…

Naruto was at home, having breakfast and drinking his coffee. He trusted his trusty kage bunshin to warn him… and it did. Naruto sighed and with a hand seal, he was at the forest behind their bridge. He walked to it.

"Hello guys." He greeted Sasuke and Sakura. Sasuke – after thinking enough is enough and switched to ignoring Sakura – nodded his head in response. Sakura looked at Naruto, glared and continued nagging Sasuke, who groaned in annoyance. Naruto walked to a nearby tree and sat on its shade.

"Sorry I am late-" "LI- oh forget it…" Sakura slumped down and Sasuke facepalmed. He wanted to be Kakashi right now. Kakashi just eye smiled. Naruto boredly joined them.

"Anyway, let's go to Hokage-sama for a mission."

 **HOKAGE TOWER**

"Team 7 reports for a mission, Hokage-sama" Kakashi greeted Hiruzen, who took a puff from his ever-lit pipe.

"Welcome once again team 7. Another D rank Kakashi?" Hiruzen asked with a smile. Kakashi hummed and looked at the genins, they were vigorously shaking their heads.

"Yes" He said with an eye smile.

"That's it!" Surprisingly it was Naruto who exploded. He got behind Sasuke - who looked at him in confusion, put his fingers in a cross hand seal and pushed his chakra through Sasuke. Another Sasuke puffed to being and two Sasukes looked each other with shock. He had planned to do same to Sakura, then make one for himself to send them for the mission but-

Thud.

Everyone looked at the unconscious Sakura, who had a stupid smile on her face and sweatdropped.

"Naruto? I didn't know you could do that." Kakashi curiously stated. Naruto grunted.

"Time and boredom, sensei. I even learned that kage bunshin passes its experiences to its caster with same way." Naruto lied smoothly. His eyes then took a glint of mischief and moved to Sakura's unmoving body.

"Sakura! Sasuke desperately needs you to hug him!"

The effect was instant. Sasukes looked at Sakura in horror, cursed Naruto and started running to different ways, Sakura squealed, jumped to her feet, choose a target Sasuke and chased him and Naruto watched all with a smile.

Kakashi rescued Sasuke by grabbing Sakura from back of her dress while reading his book. Sasuke shot him a relived look between pants and glared at Naruto after winded a little, who waved back at him. They jolted back at the moment by Hiruzen's laugh.

"Actually, we better start taking C ranks Hokage-sama." Kakashi returned to business.

"Is that so?" Hiruzen muttered. "Send Tazuna-san in."

An old, Drunk man stepped inside and looked at the team 7.

"I thought konoha was best, I gave a lot of coin for a scarecrow and some snot nosed brats? They look like they don't need foes to get defeated, especially that short one with blonde hair." The man grumbled and took another huge swing from his liquor. Naruto sighed, others glared.

"We are best; short, snot nosed blond brat ninja for drunk, stinky old client. Perfect match." He replied boredly, earning a glare from the client.

"Naruto, behave." Kakashi absently reprimanded.

"Yes sensei." Naruto amended as absently.

"Your mission is guarding Tazuna-san to Wave Country." Hiruzen said.

"Alright team, pack for at least 2 weeks of supplies. Let's meet at East Gate 1 hour later." Kakashi turned back and vanished with a puff of smoke.

 **1 HOUR LATER – EAST GATE**

They all were arrived at the gates, ready to go.

"Wow sensei, I didn't know you could do that." Naruto said after seeing Kakashi arrive on time.

"Do what, Naruto?" Kakashi asked.

"Arriving on time, I wouldn't be surprised if you were to be late to your own grave." Naruto replied.

"Oh, come now. I am not that bad, am I?" The genins gave him a 'do you really need to ask?' look.

"Maybe I should go back to be late a little more then?" Kakashi asked with an eye smile, genins were back to track.

As they go past the gates Naruto commented on what was at other genins' mind.

"First time out of Konoha's walls… Interesting." He shrugged and walked ahead.

 **SOME TIME LATER**

They walked near a puddle near road. Naruto saw it and pretended to ignore it, Sasuke and Sakura were seemingly oblivious to it; Sakura was making small chat with their client and Sasuke was in his own world. Kakashi spared a glance at it and returned to his book. They walked past it and for a moment it was calm.

Then a cloaked duo with bladed chain lunged at them, wrapped the chain around Kakashi and seemingly sliced him apart.

"One goes down…" one of the duo started. "…Four to go." The other finished.

"Sensei!" Sakura shouted, Sasuke was shocked and Naruto looked at the trees for a moment and looked at Sasuke with focus.

Sasuke threw a shuriken at the chain, then a kunai to middle of shuriken after it bended the chain to a tree to pin it. He, then jumped and kicked the interrupted duo from behind their heads. The chain gave away and they were separated. A kunai whistled and hit one of their assailant's head, killed him instantly. Sasuke got sickened at the death and didn't saw the other assailant coming for him on time. When he saw assailant it was already too late, the clawed hand was already trusting for his brain…

* * *

 **END OF CHAPTER**

 **Let's end here - cliffhanger and all is at place. Thanks for reading. Follow/favorite if you like.**


	14. Sharingan: sasuke

**A wave of inspiration hit me while I was at school so… here we are**

 **(Put legend & disclaimer here)**

 **CH 13: SHARIN' GUN WITH SASUKE**

He already accepted that it was too late for him, he couldn't stop the clawed hand that was coming for his head. It was like slow motion; he could see glinting claws and purple poison coating them slowly trusting at his forehead. He glanced at others; Sakura had a silent scream of horror plastered on her face, her arm slowly extending towards him; their client's wide eyes, slowly filling with guilt of causing such a fresh life to smother for him… and Naruto…

He had a satisfied look on his face; then changed to a warm, reassuring look replaced it. He looked down and weaved some hand seals so fast that he couldn't see even in this odd 'slow motion' moment, then raised his head to capture his eyes…

Next moment, there was a metaphorical unlocking and falling of puzzle pieces.

He remembered a memory with his brother, their training, then arrival of a blonde haired boy, some talking he couldn't remember, feeling of wonder, more training under blond boy's watch, his brother leaving, more talking, feeling of warmness against the blond boy, some more training with him…

Another one with running to some part of a forest, feelings of brewing with excitement and impatience to meet with a valued friend, then reaching a meadow, greeting with the blond boy again…

More memories rushed through his head with speed of light, while the clawed hand nearly at a standstill inches away from his forehead. Then last and most clear memory came to his view; the night of massacre…

* * *

He remembered training with the blond boy with blue eyes, Naruto, after academy, sparing together. But there was something wrong; the blond was taking his time, like waiting or stalling for something; avoiding his attacks, half-assed offence… normally he would overwhelm him after got bored but this time the time gap was nearly doubled. He asked about this to him, suspiciousness arouse in his mind, the blond gave a sheepish grin and told him that he was tired. They both knew that was a lie but Sasuke shrugged and continued his attacks for a while more but his suspiciousness grew nonetheless. Fifteen minutes later he couldn't stand anymore and looked for an excuse to go home.

"It's getting late, Naruto. I should go home; my mother must be worried." He found his excuse and watched Naruto for any clues about this abnormality. His eyes widened for a split second, a sign of panic, next moment the blond plastered an easy grin, but he caught it and he started to get worried.

"Why not stay with me this night? We could have fun." He suggested. Now he was worried, Naruto must have caught it because he glanced around for a split second, a sign of desperation.

"I should ask my mother first." He replied, he started to get seriously worried and wanted to know what was happening.

"I am sure she won't-"

"I'll be back." he started his way to the Uchiha Compound. He could hear Naruto's shouts of his name and paced faster. It didn't take the blond long to catch him, he was way fastest one of them after all.

"Sasuke you shouldn't-"

"What's happening at the compound?"

"I don't know what-"

"Don't lie to me!" He shouted, he was terrified. Naruto opened his mouth to deny once again but sighed instead.

"You don't want to know, Sasuke. You really don't." He sighed sorrowfully. Sasuke started to tear up, his instincts were screaming at him that there was something horrible happening.

"What's happening at the compound?" He asked again.

"Sasuke-"

"What's happening at the compound?!" he shouted this time, tears rolling down his eyes. He was hoping his brother was safe. Naruto fisted his hand, a flash of pain went through his face.

"Let's go there, you won't believe otherwise." They continued to the compound.

 **UCHIHA COMPOUND**

It was a hell.

Dead bodies lying with different causes of death.

Streets filled with blood puddles.

Weapons in different parts of streets, some bloodstained, some sticking to corpses, some stabbed at ground or walls. And in the middle of it was Naruto and Sasuke.

They were running to his family's mansion. More bodies they passed, worse Sasuke felt, the eerie silence did not help it. At last they reached the mansion.

"Mother! Father! Brother!" Sasuke started to shout but Naruto was already knew what they were going to see. He followed Sasuke to the stairs nonetheless. Sasuke checked rooms one by one, then he was in front of the door of their living room, he hesitated.

'Calm down… calm down… calm down' the words looped in his mind and he slowly opened the door after Naruto joined him. What he found inside was haunted him to this day.

"Mother… Father… Brother, why?" he started to sob now, he couldn't see the agony at his brother's face, but naruto did and sent him a half pitying, half sorrowful look. Itachi sent him a shocked look then it melted to a grateful one. Naruto then put his hand to Sasuke's shoulder for a moment then weaved hand seals before he look at him. And when he did…

" **Secret Illusion Technique: Edge of Reality** "

He cast a powerful illusion to Sasuke…

 **NEXT DAY – HOSPITAL**

Naruto was sitting next to Sasuke, latter's stone cold eyes, devoid of any emotion agonized the former, not that latter was aware of this. He was lost in his memories of last night (oblivious to him, memories that planted by Naruto.)

" _I killed them all. Why? Because I wanted to test myself"_ he closed eyes but memories still haunted him.

" _I am letting you live because killing you would be a waste of energy."_ Silent tears escaped his eyes.

"I am sorry for doing this to you Sasuke." Naruto suddenly said, causing him to look at him blankly. He was slowly weaving hand seals.

"There are people dangerous even here, Konoha, so its best if I lock the dangerous knowledge away for your sake."

"When the time is right I'll unlock them back for you or when your Sharingan fully matured they will be unlocked. For now, you best forget me, and the potential you have."

"Goodbye and I am sorry, Sasuke. However the memories unlocked, know this; you are my best friend." He finished them, there was a single tear at the edge of his eye but he was smiling nonetheless.

" **Illusion Seal: Shroud of Oblivion** "

Then there was darkness…

* * *

He was back, the clawed gauntlet was still coming for his forehead. His eyes sharpened and he caught it and twisted it behind its owner. He looked at Naruto in edge of his vision; he mouthed him 'later'. He nodded and pulled a kunai to stab the man's heart.

"Wait, Sasuke. Let's interrogate him first." Kakashi stopped him. He shrugged and dealt a swift jab at the man's neck.

 **15 MINS LATER**

"They were after you, Tazuna-san. Care to explain?" Kakashi asked with an out of character anger.

* * *

 **END OF CHAPTER**

 **Some light to Sasuke and Naruto's past. Follow/fav if you want.**

 **EDIT: I knew I forgot something...**

 **Secret Illusion Technique: Edge of Reality** : S rank. A genjutsu that takes control of victim's awareness and gives it to caster to shape as he pleases. **Becouse of mental strain,** **ca** **ster cannot cast another genjutsu for a time between 1 hour to 2 days based on mind prowess**

 **Illusion Seal: Shroud of Oblivion** : S rank. A hybrid of genjutsu and fuinjutsu that makes an imaginary seal in victim's mind to hide certain memory(ies). Becouse it is imaginary, it can only unsealed by victim, caster or (if programmed as such) after a certain condition happened. **Cannot be spotted by other sourcess becouse the seal is technically a product of imagination and viewed as such.**


	15. Wild Waves pt1

**Here I am once again. Let's get started without much ado**

 **(You know legend and that I don't own Naruto.)**

 **CH14: WILD WAVES (PT1)**

* * *

Kakashi tapped his foot while waiting for Tazuna's explanation, who looked to the ground and twirled his fingers like a child got caught at mischief. He heaved a sigh and decided to start from beginning. With a grim voice he started.

"Wave Country used to be rich with tourists and trade. We were happy and satisfied in our little town until a man named Gato came and monopolized Wave. He bought Wave's riches and used other nefarious ways to get what he can't buy what he wanted. Before we realized we were poorer than ever before. He exploited us as slaves, let his men rape women and sold children. We tried sending for help but Gato caught and publicly executed them brutally to break already low morale to pieces. I volunteered, made and hide a small canoe. One night I sneaked past Gato's patrol and reached Konoha. However, the money we put together was only enough for a C rank. Now, I understand if you go back to your village. It will spell my doom but I am sure you are used to death, you are shinobi after all, and I won't blame you. My only regret would be leaving my daughter and grandson alone, there is nothing protecting them from Gato without me." Tazuna finished explaining the situation.

Kakashi was staring at ground and clenching his fists. He knew how cruel people can be but still… enslaving of a nation was not something can be seen every day.

Sakura had tears in her eyes, she thought those kind of things only happened in drama books.

Sasuke was frowning deeply, Gato was despicable, but not only one. He looked at Tazuna in a new light, his bravery was remarkable.

Naruto was most undisturbed one at the group, Madara already showed, _made him live_ in his memories with super genjutsu to harden him and make him more experienced. - It made him more perceptive and adaptive, for that he was grateful, but perception is both a blessing and a curse. – Still that didn't stop the slight twitch on his fingers.

"It pains me but I have to say we can't come with you. My team is freshly graduated and not ready for that kind of mission yet. I understand your situation and we would go with you if we were a team of chuunin or if I was alone but unfortunately we are not an we have to…"

"… go with him." Sasuke cut Kakashi.

"Sasuke it's too dangerous…!"

"I agree with Sasuke, sensei. Sooner or later we will be exposed to death. It's better happen sooner than later." Naruto voiced his thought. They looked expectantly at Sakura, she was hesitant and terrified. Kakashi and Naruto's eyes softened but still were firm. It was an epiphany but a necessary one: to be a ninja, one must dance with and embrace death. Moments later Sakura had her epiphany, steeled her resolve and nodded to them. Sasuke breathed out a breath he didn't realized he was holding.

"Very well, its 3 against 1 then…" he wrote a note, cut his thumb with a kunai and weaved some handseals.

" **Kuchiyose no jutsu** "

A puff of smoke later there was a pug staring at them.

" **Yo everyone, need something Kakashi?** " The pug greeted them.

"Pakkun I need you to give note to Hokage-sama and return to us with reinforcements." He gave the note to the dog, who mock-saluted them and vanished in another puff of smoke.

"…Let's go." Kakashi finished.

 **Some time later**

The walk was rather uneventful, Sakura and Tazuna was making small chat until a bush rustled. They went to check, only found a white rabbit. Sakura sighed in relief but Kakashi's shout had her on guard again.

"Get down!"

Kakashi tackled Tazuna, Sakura and Sasuke fell down and Naruto… retied his shoelaces… everyone avoided the ultra-mega sized butcher knife successfully nonetheless. A man appeared on the knife… sword… thing.

"Kirigakure no Kijin, Zabuza…" Kakashi ominously stated and armed himself with a kunai. "…Stand back, he is too much for you." He cautioned genin and got into a fighting stance.

"Sharingan no Kakashi, What a surprise. Hand me the bridge builder and I will let you go, or I will kill you and -." He caught a kunai coming towards him, and looked at its source. There was a 'tch' ing Sasuke. He raised his hand to throw it back but…

'BOOM'

… the exploding seal wrapped around handle detonated. Sasuke smirked in satisfaction until he saw Zabuza on water with his… weapon.

"Yes, as I was saying, give me the old man or-" He was cut again with a windmill shuriken thrown by Naruto. He leaped over it and glared at male genin.

"Let me finish damnit!" He snapped at them. They 'oh' ed and put their projectiles behind their backs.

"As I was saying, give me old man or die painfully and slowly." There was silence and everyone just stared… stared… sta-

"You can attack me now!" Zabuza snapped, then growled "You know what, damn you and damn it. I'll come back and kill the old man later. You just killed the mood…" there was another rustling and something suspiciously like headslapping. "…Lets go Haku." There was falling to ground, cursing Zabuza and a masked… person came, slapped Zabuza behind his head and they shunshined away.

Silence…

Tsukimaru's laughter echoed in Naruto's head, he also was biting his lip not to. Others were still trying to grasp just what the hell actually happened.

"Well it concluded nicely…" Kakashi tried. Tsukimaru's laughing renewed, a couple snickers poured over Naruto's hold, others hummed.

"Anyway, let's go to you place and get ready for next confrontation." Kakashi tried again. This time it worked and they got in their way to Tazuna's.

* * *

 **End of Chapter**

 **don't forget to fav/fol/rew**

 **GF is out, bye**


	16. Wild Waves pt2

**Hello again with another new chapter. Sorry for my lateness... university exams are going to be death of me…**

 **(a reader): I am sure you are going to have a what-a-twist face after this chapter. Thanks for reading and review btw.**

 **Everyone enjoy.**

 **CH 15 WILD WAVES PT2**

* * *

Rest of the way was relatively uneventful. Only thing to consider was Zabuza's possible report to Gato and the man's reaction to it. They reached to the bridge builder's home after some rowing on a fisherman's canoe. It was evening when they arrived at home. Tazuna knocked the door. A couple moments later a pale, black haired, beautiful woman opened the door.

"Hello how can I- father!" the woman cut herself after seeing the old man and hugged him fiercely. Then she remembered he was not alone and let them in with too-happy-to-be-sheepish smile. After they seated themselves on the table in guestroom/saloon/dining room their client told her the events and his success at finding help.

"Thank you for bringing my father back safely. My name is Tsunami." She introduced herself.

"And thank you for your hospitality ma'am. We are team 7 of Konoha, I'm Kakashi." Kakashi introduced himself.

"My name is Sakura. It's a pleasure." Sakura politely did the same.

"The name's Sasuke."

"Naruto"

"You have arrived on time for dinner, let me get some plates for you. Inari! The dinner is ready!" She called to the second floor before going to the kitchen. Some footsteps and moments later a small boy climbed down the stairs. He saw his grandfather and ran to him to hug him.

"I'm back my little grandson. These good ninjas guarded me back here and they promised to help us." The old man told to his grandson. The boy looked at them carefully.

"They are going to die." He said after some thinking. His grandfather grimaced at him.

"Why do you think so little boy?" Kakashi asked. Tsunami started to put their dinner to their plates. The boy brooded.

"Gato killed whoever got in his way. It won't be different with you; you are going to die!" Sasuke frowned, Naruto ignored him.

"That isn't right Inari-kun." Sakura started "We Konoha ninja are strong, we will stop Gato. Our sensei is a jonin; one of the strongest ranks in ninja. we can't lose." She finished determinedly. Inari clenched his fists and teeth.

"All you live in comfort of your village. What do you know about here? What do you know about us? What do you know about me? What do you know about pain?!" Inari snapped back. Sakura flinched, Sasuke gritted his teeth. Naruto paused, then finished his meal. They all watched as he thanked for meal and went to the door. He opened it but before he got out he decided to give some parting words.

"Gato isn't invincible, boy. He is just a coward who is hiding behind his money. We have power; enough to free you, save you but we can't save someone who don't have any hope to be saved. Find that hope, if you want to be saved." He pulled the door after that.

 **MEANWHILE - WITH ZABUZA AND HAKU**

"What the hell was that? Why did you acted like a fool?!" Haku snapped at Zabuza after they made some way away. Zabuza flinched after remembering that.

"That blond boy, it must be him…" Zabuza ominously muttered, horrified. Haku's frustration turned to morbid curiosity after hearing it.

"Who?" (s)he (1) asked after some silence. Zabuza had flinched again.

"The Whispering Death… They have same aura… Not same body but aura is same… I felt it for one moment, but there is no doubt… He is the Whispering Death…"

Haku was terrified now. (S)he never saw Zabuza this fearful.

"Who is Whispering Death?"

"He is the man that singlehandedly concluded Kiri's civil war… and I still thank my luck he chose us over Yagura's army…"

 **FLASHBACK**

A young woman was fighting with a dozen or so of people next to a man with bandages on his face and a giant meat cleaver on his shoulder. There were puddles of water and cooling lava around them. They both were panting like they were fighting for hours. The woman weaved some handseals and a wave of lava came out of her mouth. It caught some of the opposing people while others avoided it. Some reinforcements filled their dead comrades again. some of them threw some projectiles to them while others weaved handseals to attack with different natured attacks, majority were water. The man with bandages weaved some handseals and a thick wall of water raised from ground and protected them. The man then waved another set of hand seals and a dragon made out of water formed and attacked the opposing forces. More than half of them got caught and died but more took their place.

"Zabuza, this is going nowhere." The woman told lowly to the man.

"I know but what can we do Mei?" Zabuza replied as they jumped back to avoid another round of projectiles.

"We must fall back and re-"

"You seem to be in a bad situation." A man's voice came from somewhere above them. They both looked around but couldn't see anyone.

"Who are you? Show yourself!" Zabuza bellowed to the trees.

A man jumped down from a shadowed tree, like out of shadows. He had a black robe, a black cape with hood and black face mask. He had an aura of power, so much dark power, and they couldn't sense him even at this near… whoever was this man, he both have power and skill to use that power, in short; someone dangerous and not to be angered for anyone near him. A kunai missed them and stabbed to the ground near them. That pulled them back to the other matter at hand: civil war.

"I can help you out of this situation." The man stated. Zabuza and Mei narrowed their eyes.

"Why?" Mei asked.

"I want to know why this war happened, why villagers from same country are each other's throats and possibly end it." the man replied.

"And that's it?" Zabuza asked, suspicious.

"I also want Sanbi after we killed Yagura. Then jinchuriki of six tails at a later date." The man dropped the bomb shell.

"What? No! that's-"

"Zabuza…" Mei cut Zabuza sternly. "We might not have any other chance… even now we rebels are losing this war… there is so little time before Yagura's army massacre rest of us…"

"But Mei, we don't even know if this man will succeed or not!" Zabuza argued.

"You wish to see my powers don't you?" the man asked them. They both warily watched as the man turned to the incoming enemies and bowed his head. Then slowly raised it. Zabuza and Mei heard something like whispering before enemies started to scream in horror and clawed at their ears and eyes for a moment before dropped to the floor. Dead by the look of it. With strained nerves Zabuza reached the nearest man's neck and checked his pulse.

"Dead." Zabuza said to Mei and they both looked at the man watching them. Their eyes hold both dread and hope.

"I am waiting for your response." The man said, unknown to them feeling a little awkward with those stares. They hesitated before sighing in defeat.

"We accept... err…" Mei paused for the man to say his name.

"My name is not really important but you can call me… In'ei"

* * *

 **END OF CHAPTER**

 **(1): I'm not sure make Haku male or not, I'm leaning to fem more tho.**

 **Here is another chapter for you everyone. Thanks for reading. Don't forget to review/follow/fav. If you did, thanks for that too. And before I forget I need beta. So don't be shy to send a PM if you think you can do it. ;)**


	17. Deal with devil

**CH 16: DEAL WITH DEVIL**

* * *

Naruto sensed around for Zabuza's chakra signature. It was not long before he found them and charged to their way. He would be a little further on their way if he calculated correctly. Moments later he arrived and sat down on a tree branch to wait for them.

"-And it was over before the day ended… He rescued us and ended civil war but his power was… terrifying. He is one of the few people I fear." He heard Zabuza's voice, probably talking with his Kiri anbu companion.

"But if that is true and you think that blond boy is this Inei person, why is he disguised as a _genin_ of all things?"

"I don't know but its best we stay away from- "

"Me, right?" Naruto jumped down from his branch, in front of mercenary duo. This caused the duo's eyes to widen.

"Inei!" Zabuza exclaimed, you could _see_ fear radiating from him.

"No, but near enough. 'Inei' is a host of mine, a remote device if you will." He shot them a long and hard gaze. "The seal I just placed on you will destroy your mind if you even think about mentioning it to someone else." The duo went rigid "Just joking…" Zabuza breathed a sigh of relief. "But really, don't tell that to anyone. It's still early for me to defect from Konoha."

"Speaking of which, why are you disguising as a genin?" Haku asked.

"Why? Have you ever done D ranks? It's my best free-time activity." Haku sweatdropped. This guy was giving Zabuza chills?

"Jokes aside, there is no reason for you to know. I want you to do something for me." They both got straightened up, it must be serious for Naruto to ask them something.

"I want you to continue your mission."

"About the bridge builder?"

"yes"

"Reason?"

"Just do as I say. Then I will help you kill Gato and channel his cash to Kiri." Zabuza thought a little and sighed.

"Very well. Will you fight?"

"Probably not but things may change. Anbu-san…"

"My name is Haku"

"Haku… take sa- the dark haired boy. He is an Uchiha and have sharingan. Press him to mature it. I may join you on that fight. And don't forget you both, we don't know each other and we didn't had this talk."

"There is one thing though…" Haku began, causing other two to look at her.

"…How are we going to explain our… 'retreat'" Naruto burst to snickers. Zabuza may or may not pouted; bandages were covering his mouth so that can't be seen. A couple moments of Naruto's snickers later Zabuza decided enough is enough, and defeated his phobia of the blond, slapped back of Naruto's head.

"Ow, fine, fine" a deep breath, a moment of silence and Naruto sighed. "Don't know… drugged? Drunk? A stupid bet?"

Pause.

"Bet..." Zabuza started.

"…done when you were drunk." Haku finished.

"Or you can just say 'Shut up! I don't want to talk about it!'…" Naruto suggested…

"Fine" Zabuza said with a shrug.

"then bye for... a week. Then attack Tazuna's bridge." They got separated.

 **TAZUNA'S HOME**

Naruto arrived to find everyone at their own business; Sasuke reading a book and ignoring Sakura, Sakura trying to get Sasuke's attention, Kakashi reading his own… book, Tazuna drinking something and Tsunami cleaning dishes.

"I am back" he looked around. "Where is Inari?"

"Probably at his room or watching the sea." Tsunami replied over her shoulder. He nodded but she was back at her work already. He looked at her unimpressedly and started to climb stairs.

He found the boy on balcony, thinking or brooding or both, and sat next to him. the boy ignored him and continued gazing at the sea.

"You have the same thousand yards stare I used to have." Inari continued to ignoring him.

"My Father and Mother died when I was born. The village, Konoha, got attacked at the same day I was born. Mother died from giving birth to me and for something, father died at fight and something. My village hated me because of something out of my control. I can count the people gave a damn in the whole village with one hand. I never had a family. I too did stopped fighting at some point." He paused and glanced at the boy. Inari was now looking at him.

"Why are you fighting now then?" Naruto closed his eyes and fell on his back to watch stars.

"Some people gave me a reason to live, a goal, a dream, an ambition. And I started fighting again. All people need a reason to keep going, a dream, a bond to tie them to earth." A pause. "If you don't have a dream then let me give you one; save wave, your home."

"But Gato- "

"-Is a coward hiding behind his money. We ninja will get rid of his mercenaries but it must be you villagers that should bring him down. And for that you must have hope and will to fight. Rest will come naturally." Naruto stretched and got up, Inari was having another round of thinking.

"I am off to bed." He slide the door back.

 **NINJA'S ROOM**

Naruto just sat his bed before pulled to mindscape by Tsukimaru.

" **You damn monkey! You promised to change this mindscape at first opportunity but it's still a damn sewer. FIX. IT. NOW!"**

Naruto had closed his eyes before the fox started its ranting, wiped the fox spit on his face before opening his eyes.

"Are you in heat or something? What's with the explosive burst?"

Tsukimaru would have blushed if he wasn't so angry with the blond

" **NARUTO!"**

"Alright, alright. Geez no need to shatter my eardrums." The blond closed his eyes and concentrated. He imagined himself in a lush forest with a river nearby, imagined hearing it and he actually started to hear it. he imagined some wild animals, chirping of birds told his success. He opened his eyes to see the forest but the cage was still intact. Frowning, he closed his eyes again and imagined the cage. He slowly shrinked it-

" **Naruto!"**

He opened his eyes to see the bars pressed against Tsukimaru's furs. Frowning again, closed his eyes and reimagined the cage but this time he changed the cage by stacking the bars to one place like curtain, then pulled roof and ground of cage to outwards. Then he shrinked the cage and changed it to a ring on Tsukimaru's finger. It didn't have any gems but there was a kanji for 'seal' on it.

" **Much better."**

"Yep, still it is a little forest for your size. I may try to change it too… if you want of course."

The fox looked around and decided that Naruto had a point; he could see over trees, not much details Naruto imagined for him and… he could chase rabbits like an actual fox, it was a fancy he had while he was a kit but forgotten as time passed. Now he may have a chance and he would get it… if only for nostalgia's sake.

" **Fine, do it."**

Naruto closed his eyes and concentrated again. A shiver ran down from Tsukimaru's spine as he started to shrink down. It was not only his size changing however, he felt something odd happening at his legs. He looked at them to see his knees looked more like humans' now, his muzzle was turning to mouth. All in all, he looked more like a tailed, clawed, fanged and furry human now.

" **What have you done to me?!"** Tsukimaru roared in a moment of blind panic.

"Whoops, When I tried to imagine you littler this came out." Naruto scratched back of his head sheepishly.

Tsukimaru sighed and looked at himself again, this time with a calmer head. It wasn't actually a bad shape as he flexed his legs and toes.

" **It isn't very bad actually…"** He looked at his hands and clenched and unclenched them then turned them around. " **Don't change me back… I'll go with this form for some time, to test it"**

 **(This part is a little fluffy and, you know … kissy. Skip if you want.)**

"Of course it isn't bad, it has some benefits too…" Naruto grinned.

" **Like what?"**

"Like this…" He walked in front of Tsukimaru and placed a light kiss on his lips.

He watched Tsukimaru as he was beet red and slack-jawed. He chuckled at the face the fox was making.

" **I- you- what- why?"** it took four times for the fox to compute the question. The blond chuckled again.

"I may be a lot of things but blind is not one of them. I knew what your feelings towards me changed to and I decided to give it a try…" he folded his arms and turned around "If you don't want me to do it again…"

" **No! I mean no, you can… kiss me when you** **want**." He looked at his feet when saying this and against all his struggles, the blush did not went away. Naruto turned back to him with a grin. **'at least orange fur makes it less obvious'** he thought.

"And this is how I bested the great Kyuubi no Kitsune" He mock flexed his muscles… and killed all the mood.

" **Bested? Come here you damn mortal I wi-"** he cut off by Naruto's mouth on his and his tongue sucked in it. he instantly frost and his blush renewed. Naruto caressed Tsukimaru's tongue in his mouth for a moment before pulled back. Tsukimaru left with his tongue hanging out. Naruto thought about the taste for a moment.

'Fire and… hints of earth… nice' He ruffled Tsukimaru's fur a little.

"Yes, bested." He said with a smug grin. "Anyway, it was a nice catch up but I want to sleep now" Tsukimaru was too lost to reply. "So, later" he disappeared with a wave. Several moments later Tsukimaru regained his senses. He pulled back his tongue and tasted the leftovers of the kiss. **'Sunshine and… ramen why I am not surprised.** ' He thought and touched his lips. His brain rebooted a little later and he growled and glared where Naruto was for a moment, before his mustered anger slipped like sand between fingers.

" **Damn monkey"** He whined.

* * *

 **END OF CHAPTER**

 **I got the most** _ **ridiculous**_ **writers block ever! I ranted a little about it as a review for last chapter... anyway, this chapter was done some days ago but I lost connection to my… PC ...… then internet got shit... I don't wanna talk about it…**

 **Anyway**

 **Here is another chapter, thanks for reading, dont forget to review and others. Guy is out. Bye.**


	18. Tree walking

**Enough stalling around, wait for inspiration to hit me… it partially did anyway so let's start.**

 **BTW today I watched the 469. Chapter of anime, I finally saw Kakashi's face. I can die happily now…**

 **CH17: TREE WALKING**

* * *

 **Next day after reimagining Naruto's Mindscape**

Kakashi took them for training, a gut feeling that saved his life many times told him Zabuza and his companion was going to attack them. He was going to teach his team tree climbing to strengthen their chakra control.

"Alright team today we are going to learn climbing trees…"

"But sensei, we already know how to climb trees." Sakura butted in. Kakashi sighed.

"Let me finish Sakura. We are going to learn climbing trees… without using out hands."

"Huh? Is it possible?"

"It is. Let me show you." Kakashi walked to a nearby tree and put his foot on it. then he raised other one and put it next to it. he walked until he stood next to a thick branch and sit to it. Sakura was gaping, Sasuke's eyebrows were raised in shock, Naruto was just watching him. he took three kunai and threw them near his students' feet.

"You need to channel chakra to your feet soles and use it to stick to the bark. Too much, chakra will blow the tree. Too little, you won't stick. I recommend running first and use kunai to mark your progress. You should reach top of the tree in one go." Objective given, Kakashi jumped from tree and started to trek away.

"Wait Kakashi-sensei."

"Yes Sakura?"

"Aren't you going to observe us?"

"No, you aren't academy students anymore."

"Yes, sensei"

"I will take today's watch of Tazuna-san. You are free after you do it. later." Kakashi vanished in a puff of smoke. Genin took their knives, two out of tree chose a tree to run their training and ran towards them. Naruto took 'his' kunai, pocketed it and sat to a nearby boulder.

"Why aren't you trying to climb Naruto?" Sakura irritatedly asked. Naruto sighed, slowly walked to a tree and climbed to it. when he reached the top he stabbed 'his' kunai to the tree and walked down until a lowly branch and sat to it.

"I mastered it already."

"Huh? When?"

"I went to a chuunin when you were waiting for Kakashi sometime past. I asked him how can I be stronger. he talked about chakra control and told me about this training and water walking training. Then I practiced them instead of coming to our meeting spot, waiting Kakashi for hours."

"Wow, can you give us any hints?"

"Sorry, nothing more than what Kakashi already gave." He checked their progress, seeing Sasuke had still long way to go he leaned his back to tree and closed his eyes.

 **Mindscape**

Naruto arrived at his mindscape to find Tsukimaru… chasing a rabbit in a meadow.

" **Come here you little fluffy-"** Naruto found the great Kyuubi no Kitsune failing to catch a rabbit too funny to disrupt so he sat and watched the scene in front of him, and waited to see when the fox would realize he is here. The fox tripped over a root and slammed to ground. He rubbed his nose while cursing.

" **That damned..."** He felt eyes on him and looked around and saw Naruto watching him with a smug grin. He shuffled to his feet embarrassedly.

"Oh don't mind me, continue your chase." Naruto pointed to somewhere. The fox looked at where he pointed and saw the rabbit nibbling on some grass. The fox narrowed his eyes at the animal. With a shout he started the chase again.

'Round 2 begins' Naruto thought with a grin.

 **Half an Hour Later**

" **Huff… huff…"** Tsukimaru fell to his knees and panted. Naruto decided to help him.

"Maybe you should use more… stealth?"

" **Huh?"**

"Clearly the rabbit is faster than you. so you should 'cheat' a little."

" **Oh yeah? what do you suggest O master hunter?"**

"Stop shouting like a pack of elephants for once. Be silent, crouch to lessen the sight of you and move from its behind so it won't see you. it also would help if you hunt it in obstructed places for sneaking."

Grumbling the fox crouched and silently half walked, half crawled towards the bunny. The hare twitched its ears and he stilled as a statue. A couple moments of stillness later the bunny returned to its feast. The fox got nearer. This continued for several times before the fox got near enough to tackle the prey, so he did that. However, the hare proved its speed by leaping away at the last moment. The fox growled.

"You did better than last time. It might require some tries but you can do it." Naruto encouraged the fox from a far. "Chase it to the forest." The fox nodded and went to herd the hare. Naruto had a smile.

"I'll go for now. You know what to do if you need me." The fox waved at him and Naruto faded from his mindscape.

 **Training area**

Naruto opened his eyes to see Sakura sitting on a branch and Sasuke had managed to reach half of the tree's length. Naruto could see he was losing his patience very quickly. He sighed.

"Try to empty your mind before focusing. It may help." Sakura glared at him.

"Why didn't you said this before?"

"It isn't so hard to see, is it? you are a smart girl, aren't you? you could have figured that yourself." He smirked inside. "But looks like Sasuke cannot live up to Uchiha name…" He saw the raven's glare. He shot him a challenging smirk. Sasuke was at his best when goaded… if he remembered right. Sasuke resumed his struggles with a renewed vigor….

…None of them saw Sakura's first shocked then blushing face.

"Will you please go and help Tsunami-san, Sakura? We will come when we wrapped this up." Naruto requested from Sakura with an eye smile. She nodded and trekked back to Tazuna's home. When she disappeared from sight, Naruto sighed.

"Later is now, eh?" Sasuke stopped his tries and turned to Naruto.

"You have sealed my memories. Why?"

"Danzo was sniffing around us too much and I couldn't kill him, his root needed to strengthen the village's forces to intimidate other villages away from attacking konoha. If he knew your potential, he would try to get you under his hand even when Itachi intimidated him not to with sharing vital knowledge with enemies of Konoha."

"You could have told me not to join him." Sasuke snarled at him.

"He had Shisui's eye, I couldn't risk."

"What is so special about it."

"He had a Mangekyou sharingan ability that can manipulate its victim's experiences and feelings. Danzo could simply manipulate you to obey him." Sasuke was scared a little but he didn't miss a detail.

"Had?"

"I killed Danzo. The leaf doesn't need root anymore. And he deserved to die after all he had done."

"I see."

"Let's go back to Tazuna's home, you are done right?"

Sasuke had another run at the tree and this time he managed to run top of the tree.

"Yes, let's go."

* * *

 **END OF CHAPTER**

 **Thanks for reading. Don't forget to review.**


	19. Haku

**Finally, internet… we moved away and transported it but there was a problem with phone lines. There still is but the company found a temporary solution… hopefully temporary…**

 **anyway**

 **CH 18: HAKU**

 **Tazuna's Home**

Naruto and Sasuke were last to arrive, as they realized when they saw Kakashi and Tazuna seated at dinner table. Tsunami resumed to preparing the meal after opening the door for them and Sakura was helping her. They took their seats as the girls finished preparation and got seated. Everyone except Inari and Naruto were staring holes at Kakashi; more precisely his mask and food in his chopsticks which because of the tension in the room moved agonizingly slowly for them. Inari was too focused on what Naruto said yesterday and Naruto himself didn't care that much. Kakashi reached his mask and felt the gaze of many people on him. He paused with his hand on his mask and others mentally cried in impatience. He sweatdropped and tried to relive tension in the room with first thing came to his mind.

"So guys, how did training went?" he asked sheepishly. It partially worked as civilians turned to genin. Kakashi sighed in relief. Seeing the boys now focused on dinner Sakura sighed.

"It was fine, Kakashi-sensei. I managed to finish the course before Sasuke-kun." Sakura said thoughtfully and unintentionally gloated. Sasuke grumbled to his meal.

"Good, good. What about Naruto?" Kakashi discreetly consumed his dinner while no one was looking.

"Well… he said he already mastered the tree walking." Kakashi turned to Naruto with a raised eyebrow.

"And when did you do that?" Naruto snorted.

"I asked how to be stronger to a chuunin and he suggested that. I practiced when you were 'helping a granny' or 'lost at the road of life' and let's not forget when you 'took long way around because of a black cat'." Kakashi sheepishly rubbed back of his head. The good thing – for him anyway – he managed to finish his meal without his face was seen. Others face-faulted when they saw that. Naruto smirked and elbowed Sakura and Sasuke lightly and pointed to other side of the table, to Inari.

Inari managed to get a glimpse at the man's face and his eyes were shining now.

Inner Sakura shrieked and frothed.

Outer Sakura and Sasuke's chins fell to the table.

'ALRIGHT, NOW I AM DYING TO KNOW' They thought at the same time. You could read that from their faces. Naruto snickered and resumed his meal.

* * *

After finishing his dinner Naruto excused himself to take a walk. He stopped for a moment to stretch his senses and found Zabuza's signature chakra. He made his way to where he felt the demon. After around half an hour walking later he spotted a treetop hideout and could feel Zabuza's chakra coming inside. He realized Haku wasn't inside and stretched his senses again to find her. She was back in the forest. He took a step to the hideout then decided against it and walked to the forest.

* * *

Haku was gathering herbs for practicing her herbal healing. It was hard to learn healing techniques while on the run but she managed to get some books on healing herbs and anatomy. It proved its use as Zabuza, as much he tried not to, get injured many times on their travels. She felt a soft breeze and paused, but when nothing happened for some time she resumed her gathering.

"Hello Haku." She took a sharp inhale of breath turned to her back to see Naruto watching her. He directed his gaze at the leaves on her hand.

"Collecting herbs?" he asked and got nearer. When he didn't get and response he looked at her shocked face again. He sweatdropped.

"I won't bite you, I swear." He recalled sarcastically. This broke Haku from her stance. She flushed in embarrassment.

"Yes, healing herbs." Naruto nodded and took one leaf from her hand. The touch sent shivers up and down at her spine. She blushed.

"Can I help?" he asked while looking at the leaf closely and took another herb and compared them. He put them together after some examining.

"Sure" She replied and they gathered some herbs after some time.

"Tell me about yourself." Naruto asked after some time, causing Haku to turn to him.

"Hmm?"

"Tell me about yourself; why did you joined Zabuza? How was your life before? Things like that." Naruto tried again without pausing to his gathering. Haku thought a little then decided to humor the blond.

"I born in a small snowy village in Kirigakure, my father was a farmer and my mother was a member of a clan with ice kekkei genkai (bloodline limit) …" She told him about her childhood. How her life was joyful, her friends, her mother, some stories she told her… then good things came to an end.

"I can never forget the day my kekkei genkai awakened… I was sitting near the lake my village was using to water the crops, watching it flow. I decided to rake my fingers through it, crouched next to the shore and reached with my hand but before I can touch it water raised to my hand and frost some places. I gasped in wonder, stood up and went to my mother to show that to her. She cried in horror, slapped me and told me to never use it. Then immediately started to apologize. I didn't understand that time but there was a war that kindled hatred against bloodline users on civilian and non-clan shinobi alike. My father saw me using my kekkei genkai and gathered a mob to kill me and my mother. He killed my mother but before he can kill me, my bloodline saved me by killing him and mob with giant ice spears." Haku closed his pained eyes and took a breath to calm herself. Naruto put a comforting hand on her shoulder. Haku threw him a thankful look.

"You don't have to continue if you don't want to" Haku shook her head and resumed her story.

"Orphaned, I lived in streets for a time, fighting to survive but without a purpose… Until Zabuza found me. We had same eyes, eyes that saw a lot, eyes that know pain… he decided to take me as his weapon. He trained me, fed me and most importantly, gave me a purpose. A reason to live… even if it pains me to bring pain to other people in the name of Zabuza…" Naruto closed his eyes and thought for a moment. Then opened them with conviction.

"Then join me, help me to bring peace to this world." Haku's eyes widened. "To soothe the injuries of wars, to promise a better future for innocents... Your life isn't really too different from mine. I know what it means to be an orphan, being hated because of something isn't at your hands... to lose someone you cared for, to live in loneliness... you dont have to answer me now... and tell Zabuza to attack tomorrow." He gave the herbs he collected to her and started his way back to Tazuna's.

 **END OF CHAPTER**

 **Thanks for reading. Don't forget to favorite/follow/review.**


	20. Rematch

**CH 19: REMATCH**

* * *

'Tomorrow, eh?' Haku thought. 'I hope we can get out of this alive' she collected some more herbs and started back to the hideout.

 _ **TOMORROW – BRIDGE**_

Zabuza and Haku - who donned her mask - were hiding in the forest near the bridge, watching the workers building their hope. They saw Kakashi and Tazuna's arrival and Zabuza did a handseal to start his signature jutsu to alert Kakashi about his presence and urge him to call for his students.

' **Kirigakure no jutsu'(Hidden mist technique)**

Soon enough there was a thick cloud of mist moving towards the bridge.

They saw him go through some handseals and a little dog appeared in a puff of smoke.

"I will join a little later… play around a little, but try not to overdo it." A voice told behind them, causing them to stiff for a moment but they recovered quickly. Zabuza nodded and continued to watch. Naruto sat next to him.

Sasuke, Sakura and the dog – Pakkun – arrived after some time later. Zabuza and Haku got up.

"Hey" they turned towards the blond "Good luck" Zabuza nodded and Haku thanked silently. Naruto returned to watch.

"Hello again Kakashi." Zabuza mock greeted them. "Bridge builder, if you please."

"And if I don't, will you flee like last time?" Kakashi mocked him with a smug voice. Zabuza snorted.

"Last time there was a complication, but there isn't now, so give me bridge builder or I will take him forcefully." Zabuza grinned and willed the mist to coat the area. Kakashi armed himself with a kunai ant took defensive position.

"Sasuke, Sakura! defend Tazuna-san." They nodded and flanked the man. Sakura with a kunai in her hands and Sasuke with his sharingan. Kakashi uncovered his left eye.

"Haku, the genin are yours." Zabuza pulled his cleaver from his back. Haku pulled several senbon from her weapon holster.

'So the fight starts… let's see what you can do, Sasuke…' Naruto thought with a grin.

Haku threw some senbon to Sasuke, who blocked them with a kunai he pulled from his pouch. Then he threw the kunai to Haku and started to charge towards her. Haku caught the kunai with her left hand and charged too. She slashed the kunai towards the boy's abdomen but he caught her arm and tried to punch her face. She ducked under the punch and used the momentum to punch him in liver for an inhibitive blow but Sasuke dodged to right and used her momentum against her by kneeing her in face. She tried to dodge but it got her in the shoulder nonetheless. She did one handed seals with her free hand.

" **Hyoton: Sensatsu suishou" (ice style: a thousand flying water needles of death)**

Sasuke saw the needles coming towards them and tch'd. he let go Haku and performed a chakra enhanced jump to avoid them. Haku released her jutsu to make water puddles. She did a single odd handseal.

" **Hyoton: Makyou Hyosho" (ice style: demonic ice mirrors)**

Water from puddles arose and turned to mirrors made out of ice. They surrounded Sasuke and made a dome around him. he cursed and watched them and Haku warily. Haku slowly walked to one of them and got inside of it.

"This is my most powerful jutsu, no one managed to come out of it alive. Just surrender and give us the bridge builder." Haku tried in a stern voice.

"We can't let you kill our client and crush a nations last hope." Sasuke returned as sternly and readied a kunai to defend from any harm. Haku hesitated for a moment but a look towards Zabuza wiped that from her.

"Then I am sorry for what is about to happen. I will try to make this as painlessly as possible." Haku loaded her fingers with senbon and started to throw them quickly. Sasuke blocked many of them with help of his sharingan but there were simply too much to block completely and got pierced by some of them. He winched and weaved some handseals.

" **Katon: Goukakyou no jutsu" (Fire style: Grand fireball technique)**

The fireball slammed to one of the mirrors. After steam dissolved he realized there wasn't even a crack in it. Sasuke cursed.

"It is futile. Just surrender and give us the bridge-" a shuriken cut her… mask. She staggered for a moment, in which naruto got into the dome to 'help' Sasuke.

"Are you alright?" He asked. Sasuke grunted and pulled a needle from his shoulder with a wince.

"I am not bad." He said lowly. Meanwhile Haku reoriented herself and got back to one of the mirrors. Naruto narrowed his eyes.

"What is with the mirrors?" he asked. The question returned Sasuke to the business at hand.

"She is using those mirrors to travel and attack ridiculously quickly. Some space-time ninjutsu I think… it would be better if you supported me from outside." Naruto went rigid and got a little sheepish.

"I didn't wanted to do this, but it seems I have to steel my heart. for what it's worth… I am sorry." Haku grimly reminded them of her presence and aimed to Sasuke's vital organs with her senbon.

Naruto's eyes widened and he pushed Sasuke away from their way, they pierced him instead…

One found its way to his lung and heart…

He coughed up blood and fell on his back

* * *

 **End of chapter**

 **A tiny cliffhanger in the end. You know the drill; faw/follow/review.**

 **Bye for now.**


	21. Bridge Battle

**Here we are again. Nothing much to say… except sorry for long wait. Trying to get rid of my writer's block. Oh and this story might pumped to M for gore later.**

 **I want to thank my wonderful and awesome Beta TheOnlineAnarchy! He is so awesome! (Anarchy totally didn't write that) (P.S: He did but I didn't remove that…)**

 **CH:20 BRIDGE BATTLE**

* * *

It was the first time Sasuke cursed his sharingan as they burned the image of Naruto taking a fatal blow meant to him and collapsed in a what seemed like slow motion as his sharingan continued to burn that moment to his brain with great precision and detail. The long needle piercing his chest, slipping between his ribs and going through where his heart should be. His face stuck in a pained grim resolve. A cough of blood changed that for a moment. Then finally he fell to his back. The fake hunter ninja was as shocked as him for they stood still in the while. He ran to Naruto's side and knelt next to him.

"S-sorry Sasuke, looks like this is last time we walk side by side" Naruto grinned a bloody grin and, with great difficulty, poked him on his forehead like his brother used to do. Tears started to well around his eyes.

"W-why?" this was all he could squeeze out of his suddenly tight as a vice throat. Naruto gave him a sad smile.

"I couldn't let you die; my heart couldn't endure that… I am sorry, I am so selfish." He chuckled a little and coughed more blood and his lungs stopped. Sasuke couldn't stop his tears anymore.

Haku stood there. Her mask covered her face but she was staring at the two boys. She hated herself for doing this but she knew this was shinobi life, and shinobi life was cruel.

Sasuke's eyes started to bleed as tears and blood started to mix. His sharingan matured fully and started to morph to something else. A relentless storm of fury and hate started to boil from his brain to heart as he turned to the petrified fake hunter-nin. Haku stumped from the pure malicious power radiating from the boy in front of her and she felt something she hadn't felt for a long time; fear for her life.

"Damn you." He whispered venomously.

"Curse you!" He spat even more venomously.

He started to slowly walk towards her but she accepted her sealed fate.

'Forgive me, Zabuza-sama but I can't defeat this boy.' Her eyes lost their light even before she died as Sasuke sped his pace to a run. She saw the boy's eyes. They made her feel like she could see her death, when it would happen, how and to be brutally honest she didn't mind. Zabuza didn't need useless tools and she didn't have anything else to live for.

There were mere several feet left between them.

"I will destroy yo-" it was a moment that Sasuke felt an intrusion to his chakra and next he was falling and losing consciousness. He fell next to the ice user's feet.

Another Naruto emerged from his hiding spot. Two identical 'thunk's startled Haku and she turned to their direction. She saw the pinknette and the bridge builder on the ground. A sound like chirping of a thousand of birds draw their attention to the other fight. Kakashi had a ball of lightning on his hand and running towards a bound-by-dogs Zabuza.

Seeing that his master wasn't going to make it, Haku created an ice mirror to go super speed to intercept Kakashi before he finish Zabuza. Then things happened very fastly. Kakashi thrusted his palm, Haku arrived closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, excepting the pain to come…

Explosion.

Haku didn't felt pain and hesitantly opened her eyes to see Naruto holding Kakashi's wrist and guiding it to the ground. Here was a big crater where the palm hit. Kakashi's face was a perfect example of 'eyes bulging out in shock'. He glared at Naruto after he recovered.

"What is the meaning of this Naruto?"

"We are no longer enemies. Gato betrayed Zabuza." He pointed towards an army of mercenaries. Zabuza spat to the ground.

"I knew that midget was going to betray me." Kakashi pulled his hitai-ate down and fell to his butt in exhaustion.

"They may be civilians but I am exhausted and out of chakra. What now?" Kakashi panted.

The ice mirror fell and turned back to water. Haku got to her knee.

"That was last of mine." They turned to Zabuza. He glared at the 'scarecrow'.

"Thanks to your dogs my arms are jelly…" they turned to Naruto. He sighed.

"How did you got an A rank and managed to survive this far?" Zabuza felt like he was being scolded.

"What happened to Sharingan no Kakashi, the man copied over a thousand jutsu and survived the Third Great Shinobi War?" Now it was Kakashi's turn to feel like he was being scolded. It was ridiculous. He was the teacher Damnit… Naruto turned to Haku.

"What happened to the Icy Killing Machine?" Haku looked down. Naruto shook his head.

"And I am supposed to be the fresh minted genin-"

"ALRIGHT WE GOT IT!" they all shouted. Naruto snorted.

"This disguise supposed to hold for longer but I guess best laid out plans got soiled in practice…" Naruto sighed.

"Kakashi, can you forget what is going to happen and not tell anyone?" Naruto had a sheepish smile… with hand rubbing back of his head and all. Kakashi eye smiled.

"Not a chance." Naruto grinned with his eyes closed.

"Then maybe I should kill you and blame it to Zabuza?" Kakashi paled, so did Zabuza because he started to wave off the aura that slaughtered Yagura's army. Whispers that foreseeing death and doom filled their ears. Haku sweated bullets.

"F-f-fine" Kakashi squeezed out. The aura stopped. Kakashi sighed in relief. Naruto turned towards the army. A clone materialized next to him.

'no handseals..? or faster than I can see? Both is unsettling.' Kakashi thought. Naruto pulled a wind demon shuriken.

"Ready?" he asked to the clone. It hummed an agreement. Naruto threw the shuriken to sky. Clone jumped with it.

 **"Shuriken kage bunshin" (Ninja star shadow clone)**

The clone cast the jutsu and itself transformed to one too. For a moment the shuriken swarm hanged in the air, and for the next 10 seconds a literal a rain of metal struck the army. Anguished screams and thuds of fallen bodies filled the clearing. After 10 seconds only one standing was Gato. He was quivering like a leaf and at his wits end. He turned around to run but found Naruto standing there. He squeaked and turned to the other way to see another Naruto standing there. He realized he was cornered. A whimper of terror escaped his lips.

"I-I-I can give you what you want. Money? Women? Land? J-just let me go and all will be yours."

"Very well. Give me everything you have and I promise I will let you go."

"E-E-everything?"

"Yes, or do you prefer death?" Naruto took a kunai out of his tool pouch and poised to decapitate the man.

"alright-alright-alright! Here." The man gave him a stamp and write an address to a piece of paper. Naruto looked at him in confusion.

"j-j-just use that stamp to take what you need from that address. T-t-they will give you what you want." Naruto smiled at the man.

"Thanks…" Gato fell to his knees in relief but next thing came out of the blonde's mouth shoved him into despair. "… he is yours Zabuza"

"w-w-w-wait you said you would let me go?" it sounded more like a question.

"I told you I would let you go," he stated with an eye roll, "I didn't said anything about them." He walked away and Zabuza took his place with an evil grin… until he remembered his arms were still jelly. He grunted and bit off the bandages around his mouth.

"Oi, Naruto! Give me a kunai, will you?" the blonde threw one at him. And he caught it in his mouth.

"I will savour this moment." Sadistic laughter and tormented screams arouse. The blond shook his head. He focused on Kakashi and Haku.

"Haku used a jutsu to knock them out… if they ask." He continued to where Sasuke and his clone fought Haku.

"Get up." He ordered his clone… but clone didn't respond anyway. Naruto snorted and crouched near it.

"Oi! Get-" his touch caused the clone to dissolve into smoke and the blood he used to enhance it. His eyes widened.

'That clone supposed to die if suffers a blow that may kill caster… Damn you, Shinigami! Just what else that you didn't said.' He closed his eyes and remembered what damage did his minion suffered. His eyes hardened.

'The heart… I must be careful.'

He then went back to the group.

 **"Genjutsu: Kai" (Illusion: release)**

They woke up with a gasp.

* * *

 **End of Chapter**

 **Let's end here. Thanks for reading. Again, I am sorry for long delay. You can play around with the buttons down there.**


	22. Aftermath

**Hello and welcome everyone, apologizing for my lateness is getting old so I am stopping. Anyway let's start the chapter without further ado. You know I don't own Naruto. (My beta TheOnlineAnarchy however . . .)**

 **CH 21: AFTERMATH**

Sasuke woke up groggily on the concrete of the bridge, trying to remember what happened. He looked around and his eyes caught the fake hunter-nin. He remembered everything.

He saw red.

He got up with a roar and charged to Haku. Everyone turned towards the genin. Kakashi's right eye widened at the Uchiha's eyes.

'That shape… did he awoke Mangekyou?'

"Sasuke! they aren't our enemies anymore!" Kakashi shouted to the enraged boy who, clouded with rage, didn't even heard him. Kakashi tried to interfere him but his eyesight started to get dark around edges when he tried to get up. He cursed in his mind, the Sharingan took a lot from him. Zabuza tried to reach the boy before he reached the girl but he was too far. Haku tried to run but exhaustion didn't let her. She sighed and fell to the ground.

Naruto sighed, they were in a pathetic shape…

Something grabbed his arm and Sasuke tried to punch whoever was grabbing his arm. His other hand too grabbed. Only then he looked up to his captors face, it was Naruto. Shock, relief and hope made his knees weak.

"N-Naruto?" he asked because… well, it was hard to believe his eyes after the whole ice dome fiasco.

"Yes, that's my name. thanks for remembering while in berserk." Sasuke would have snorted if it wasn't for other feelings and hugged the blonde… then punched him squarely in the gut. Naruto choked on his spit.

"W-why?" he asked between pants.

"I thought you were dead! Don't scare me like that…" he muttered last part to himself and looked away, but Naruto heard him because for the short length between them. He grinned softly to the Uchiha, then a teasing glint lit in his eyes.

"Do you prefer me dead? I am so heartbroken… I thought we were friends." He replied in mock hurt and put his hand to his chest with closed his eyes dramatically. Sasuke folded his harms with a snort and stared at the blond unimpressedly. Naruto peeked with a single eye at the boy then resumed the dramatic pose for a moment more before sighed and turned serious.

"My… tenant saved my life. I was… dead for a while. I guess my death means its death too."

"Tenant?" Sasuke asked in confusion. Naruto rubbed his forehead.

"Remember the classes about Kyuubi's attack?" Naruto whispered. Sasuke's mind ran a mile a minute before the dots connected and his eyes widened.

"Are you the Kyu-" Naruto sent him a look that stiffened him and shut his mouth.

"Look at 'Jinchuriki' when we go back to Konoha." Naruto ended the talk with a glare.

* * *

Zabuza reached others by using the opportunity for the Uchiha's confusion and interruption. The trio watched the boys for a moment before Kakashi remembered something.

"The last time you attacked us then fled… why was that?"

"As I said before, there was a complication." Zabuza tried to evade the question.

"And what was that complication?" Kakashi pressed more.

"Nothing you need to know." Zabuza tried to dismiss it.

"Was it because of Naruto?" Kakashi guessed, and Zabuza stiffened. That was more than enough of an answer.

"Yes he is strong but is it really that much?" Zabuza sighed.

"Can you keep that from him? He asked us to not talk about it." Kakashi looked at the nukenin suspiciously but nodded. Zabuza told him the story he told to Haku and what Naruto told to them. Kakashi found it hard to believe.

"Are you… sure? I mean… why would he be a genin if that's the case?"

"I don't know what he is thinking but that's him, we call him 'The Whispering Death'. He said the whispering death was his host… and I believe him, because last time I felt that aura for just a moment, maybe a reflexive move of his, and this time it was stronger than what we felt back then."

"We?"

"Me and current Mizukage, Mei."

"I see…"

"Don't forget, don't tell him I said this, I don't know what he will do but I value my life too much to see it."

"Alright."

* * *

Kakashi and Zabuza joined back up with their respective teams. Sasuke glared to the Ice user, but didn't do much else.

"Let's take Tazuna-san and Sakura. I am sure they want to go back to home." Naruto suggested… and by the condition of others, no one had the strength to protest. They joined them and told the events.

"Can Zabuza and Haku stay in your home until bridge is finished?" Naruto asked to Tazuna. The man hesitated for a moment. Naruto couldn't blame him, he was just a civilian and just half an hour ago the rouge nin was trying to kill him.

"Don't worry, there isn't any reason for him to hunt you anymore." Naruto reassured. Tazuna gave in.

"Alright let's-"

"Gato, for tormenting our precious village we Wave folk decided to ex...ecute… you" Inari started with determination but ended with confusion and looked around for the tyrant. The ninja and bridge builder group blinked at the boy.

"Where is Gato?" the boy asked in confusion.

"Under the sea… you are late." Zabuza replied with a snort of amusement. The boy sighed and the mob dispersed with a groan.

"Still you managed to encourage your village against a threat… you are in the right way. I am proud of you… I am sure your father would too." Naruto praised and ruffled the boy's hair. He halfheartedly slapped the blond's hand away and smiled. They proceeded to the bridge builder's home.

3 WEEKS LATER

The bridge had been finished and team 7 with Zabuza and Haku were getting ready to leave the Wave with the villagers sending them off.

"What should be name of the bridge?" Someone from crowd asked.

"That's easy," Tazuna made a pose "The Super Grand Tazuna Bridge!"

*Creek*

*Creek*

*Creeeeek*

Bloody annoying cricket.

Tazuna sighed. "What shall it be then?"

"How about Great Naruto Bridge?" Tsunami suggested.

"Me?" Naruto asked "But I haven't really-"

"Yeah, Naruto-nii and his team saved the wave." Inari added.

"I wasn't-"

"Great Naruto Bridge!" Inari shouted and soon all of the villagers were chanting it like a mantra. Naruto gave up and sighed in defeat. Kakashi chuckled.

"FINE, fine… Great Naruto Bridge…" Naruto snapped and others cheered.

"We have to leave. Ready trade and peace contracts." Naruto waved at them. Then turned at the kiri nin.

"What is your decision Haku?" the girl sighed.

"As much as I want to come with you and help you with your dream… my place is with Zabuza-sama. I am sorry." Naruto waved her off.

"Its fine, we will see each other later…" 'maybe' he added in his mind. He turned to Zabuza.

"Take care, both yourself and Haku." Zabuza nodded. They started to part ways.

"Naruto"

He turned to the girl and got kissed on lips. He frost from the unexpected turn but quickly recovered and returned the kiss. Kakashi giggled like a pervert and Zabuza chuckled.

'Even with such a dark power you are not that dark person are you, Naruto?' Kakashi and Zabuza thought.

"Thanks for saving us from death." Haku whispered to Naruto after breaking the kiss. Naruto snorted in amusement

"Maybe I should save you more later?" Haku grinned cheekily and they separated to join their teams. Naruto remembered something and paused.

"Oh and…" Naruto gave the stamp and address to Zabuza. "This should help you to get into kiri and a sufficient help to rebound from the civil war." Zabuza smiled a genuine smile.

"Thank you, Naruto. You helped Kiri a lot." Naruto grinned.

"The time will come for me to take you-know–what" Zabuza nodded seriously.

"We will be waiting for you." Naruto joined his team and with a wave they started their way to their destination; The address for Haku and Zabuza and Konoha for team 7.

* * *

 **End of chapter**

 **And with that wave act is officially over. Hope you enjoyed the story so far… play with the buttons down there if you like.**

 **(If you don't I will hunt you down. There is nowhere you cannot hide from me! (Cuz I am omniscient))**


	23. Nostalgia

**Alright, I stalled enough… but this time it wasn't because of my laziness (entirely), I have a good music suggestion in my mind but couldn't find it. *sigh* I gave up. This chapter more or less is a filler but it will shed some light on Naruto's life before start of this story. Let's start, eh?**

 **CH 22: NOSTALGIA**

Naruto was seated on one of his best places to rest and calm his nerves, an exotic café of sorts. They were back after their mission to wave and others, rightfully, went to their homes to rest. He came here instead and ordered a hookah.

He first learned about this place by accident; a sweet smell drew him near the place, people were smoking a strange… device. It had a small compartment on it which kept some cinders, it was connected to a wide tank filled with some liquid with a pipe. Then there was another pipe that people sucked and blew away a smoke. It was that smoke that was sweet smelling. He transformed to someone else with henge and tried that contraption himself. He learned later that under those cinders were tobacco and their smoke blew over the liquid, which were an essence of user's choice.

He asked for a mild mix and rewarded for his curiosity. Tobacco and the sweet aroma of strawberries calmed his nerves (and a little intoxicated him. because of that he doesn't have it often) and that mentality usually made him think about past. This time was no different. He saw children pass by… and that was where his thoughts headed, his childhood…

 **FLASHBACK (6 Years Ago)**

It is a common knowledge that drunk people usually do reckless or stupid things... and more than uncommonly both. Another example of it was happening with a mob of drunk villagers tailing a blonde boy.

Naruto sighed and continued to his home, fully aware of the mob tailing him. He threw a subtle glance at the ANBU who was supposed to watch and protect him but frowned at the man's indifference. He heard one of the drunken villager's stumble and turned back. He played the wary, street-hardened orphan.

"Can I help you?" he asked and as a reply the crowd charged at him. He played the terrified boy but before the leader of the group can crash his fist with the blond's face. Naruto summoned a transformed Kage Bunshin. The clone had a skull mask and black robe and it was longer than him, an adult. It caught the leaders fist and pushed it back.

"Leave while your life is intact." The Clone threathened. The crowd laughed.

"If its your wishhh t' die with th' demon. Die!" the leader lunged to the Clone but got a vicious punch to his gut.

"Suit yourself."

Everything happened too fast for the ANBU to intervene.

The clone took the strapped sword behind the leader while the man was still reeling and decapitated the man with it. He kicked the body away and simply mowed the rest of the crowd with its stolen sword. he dropped the sword near its original dead owner and returned the boy. Naruto played shaken up.

"Are you alright boy?" The clone asked to the original. The boy offered a shaking nod. The man shook his head and took the blonds hand.

"Lets get you to somewhere safe." The clone piggybacked the boy towards the forest of death. They both felt the ANBU's chakra sign getting near the Hokage Tower and the blonde jumped down from the clone's back.

"Lets see if the Sandaime will take the bait." Actually Naruto arranged the incident. His Transformed-to-bugs clones drugged the drinks of the alcoholic people that hated him with passion to lower their already low from alcohol common sense even more. This way he could be a shinobi if he could played the cards right and get something he very much needed; experience and people to experiment his techiques on, especially his genjutsu. Clone nodded and disappeared with a puff of smoke.

 **NEXT DAY**

Naruto decided to stay in his hideout at the forest of death... it was actually a little furniture full cave but still it suited his needs. It was around noon when a horse masked ANBU came.

"Hokage-sama asked for your friend's presence" He said to the blond. he nodded and returned to the cave. He transformed to 'skull' and joined the ANBU outside. the ANBU grabbed his shoulder and they shunshin'ed to Hokage Tower.

 **HOKAGE TOWER**

They arrived with a puff of smoke. Naruto shrugged the ANBU's hand off his shoulder and proceeded to the leader's office. The ANBU followed him to report.

"I guess you wished my presence?" he asked. Hokage ignored him for now and gestured the ANBU an universal sign of 'dismissed'. ANBU bowed and got out of the room.

"I dont have a skull masked anbu. can you unmask yourself?"

"Hmm... No" Naruto replied with disinterest. Hiruzen frowned and concentrated some of his killer intent on Naruto. He silently sighed and dispelled the killer intent with a burst of chakra. it also shattered the windows behind the hokage and cracked some spiderwebs on the ground Naruto was standing. the ANBU in the room froze in fear and pressure of the masked man's chakra. some of the paperwork flew out of the window. Hiruzen sweated.

"Now that intimidation tactics are gone... what did you wish of me?" Naruto asked to the old man. Hiruzen made a subtle gesture the ANBU to stay where they are.

Hiruzen cleared his throat and turned to bussiness. "There was a murder, no, a massacre at 153. street last night and one of my ANBU team reported the culprit were you. what do you have to say about that matter?"

"And what do you have to say about the matter of the people, no, mob trying to lynch a young boy with blonde hair and blue eyes? Is it not your duty to secure every person of konoha while they are in konoha limits? If not why do you care about that incident and why are you sitting in the leader's chair?" Hiruzen's eyes widened.

"How do you know Naruto?"

"So his name is Naruto? The poor boy fainted after we got away from the street. The incident must have tired him out." He replied. He was saddened inwardly, the old man didnt asked about him... it turned to anger after a moment ago...

It was entirely possible that the ANBU didnt added him to his report.

"Didn't your agent told you about the boy?" Hiruzen looked at the mysterious man in confusion a second before his eyes widened.

"Rat, bring me Racoon!" He barked. A shadow shifted. A couple of minutes later Rat brought Racoon. He blended to shadows once more.

"You didnt told me about the part with young Naruto. Do you know what that means?" Racoon shook his head. his mask did nothing about the obvious fear the man was in.

"For not doing your job fully you are to be jailed for a month." Rat put his hand on the soon-to-be-inmate's shoulder and shunshined away to the I&T department.

The hokage sighed and Naruto could swear he aged at least five years.

"For now this is the best I can do... I am sorry Naruto" Hiruzen muttered the last part but Naruto heard him. He shook his head.

"You are a sorry sight." The hokage glared at the masked man."I will look after the boy." The old leader narrowed his eyes.

"And what do you want in return?"

"I may ask for missions, any and everyone without question." Hiruzen thought about it. There wasnt really anything to think about, he was going to look after the young jinchuuriki willingly and in return only asked for some missions?

"Deal."

 **End of Chapter**

 **Lets end here. i know a lot of you are unimpressed with my lateness but my uni started again and pretty much ate away all of my free time.**


	24. Skull

**Hello again my old readers and welcome my new ones. First exams of my university finally ended and my brain recuperated enough for me to write this chapter.**

 **CH:23 SKULL**

 **A Month After the Last Chapter**

'I may have underestimated it when I thought about amount of missions…' Hiruzen thought to himself as disguised-to-skull-Naruto gave him a report scroll and dissipated from his office with a burst of dark smoke. The old man waved away it and took a moment to remember how it started.

It was but a month but the man already finished his fifth S rank mission, sabotage and assassination missions and all was success. That was at least six months worthy of missions!

Don't get him wrong, he wasn't complaining; the man was taking bulk of the hard missions and taking barely a piece of reward– barely a one-in-five – but knowing some person with that kind of power who isn't under his control or not knowing his intentions was making him on edge. He didn't do anything bad but that doesn't mean he won't. He sighed and returned his work.

A mission request caught his eyes and he started to read that. He slowly started to grin and it was splitting his face in the end of the paper.

'yes, this will do things nicely. I hope you won't be angry at me for assigning you to this.' He thought and write two names that only recognizable if you are in ANBU or you know who are behind these masks.

Skull.

Cat.

And signed it. He rolled the scroll back and wrote a big 'S' on it with a brush. He decided to take a little break, took his pipe from his drawer and turned towards the window behind him to watch the village.

 **(LINE)**

"It is so unusual of you to send word for me old man, or did you go senile and forgot that I am not your shinobi?" Skull asked with an amused tone. Cat glared at him from edge of his eyes.

"You should show more respect to Hokage-sama." The ANBU reprimanded coldly.

"Do I? last I checked he is not my leader." Skull replied with the same amused tone. Before the ravenette reply the hokage cut him.

"Enough." He barked with a glare then his face softened. "That is right, you are not my shinobi and no, I didn't go senile. This mission is just a suggestion, you can reject it if you want, however we don't have any higher ranked mission. Thanks to you" He muttered the last part. But both ninja in front of him heard it anyway. It couldn't be seen because of his mask but Crow looked at the other man with a raised eyebrow. Skull sighed in resignation.

"what if I reject it?"

"I will replace you with another ANBU and you will wait for a month or two for more missions." The old man replied nonchalantly however he was getting nervous. If his plan backfire… he didn't want to think about it. The man hummed in thought.

"Fine, I accept. but will take all of my share." The hokage shrugged. He took the scroll from the old man and moved back to exit.

"Anything else?"

"You can go. Cat you stay." The skull looked at the old man and ANBU before shrugged and reached towards the door. His hand lingered on the handle an unnoticeable moment longer before he exited from the door.

"what is your request hokage-sama?" Hiruzen sighed and made up his mind on the matter.

"I am giving you another quest. This quest doesn't have a rank but it is more important for us than an S rank. I want you to get to know Skull and have bonds with him."

"permission to speak freely hokage-sama?" the old man made a 'go ahead' gesture with his hand.

"Is this really necessary?" The leader sighed and remembered the day he first met with the masked man.

"Do you know about the massacre at the 153th Street a month ago?" The cat shook his head.

"No, Hokage-sama"

"A mob of drunk people tried to lynch a boy that day; Uzumaki Naruto also known as The Kyuubi Jinchuuriki." The ANBU nodded. "The Skull was there and he was first seen that day, no backstory, no entry report or any knowledge about him; he was like a ghost for who knows how long. He massacred them that day and the worst part the ANBU stationed there couldn't even take a single step before it was already too late."

"who was the ANBU stationed there, if I may ask?"

"Racoon." Cat's eyes widened behind the mask. Racoon was one of the ANBU that was renowned for his speed. If it was true that man may be even faster than Shisui, the fastest shinobi alive in the village!

"I called for him next day, asked him to remove the mask and tried to learn who he is."

"Tried?"

"He declined to unmask himself. I focused my Killer Intent on him and he _blasted_ it away. The pressure froze me _and_ ANBU stationed in my office." The Hokage pointed to some patches on ground and walls. "he caused them with his chakra alone." Hiruzen may be old, but he was still holding his professor moniker and arguably the strongest shinobi in the village. With the ten ANBU guards and him… Now Cat was seeing why it was necessary… the man was fast and powerful; dangerous in their own, even more dangerous as a combination. "He could very well kill me and everyone in the office if he wished that day. But instead he requested a deal."

"And what is it?"

"Missions. and in return he is guarding Naruto-kun now. This is his sixth S rank now."

"Sixth?"

"Yes. It is only a month and he finished 5 missions. we will have to recruit him to our ranks or at least make sure he is friendly with us… I don't think we can afford to have someone like him against us right now. We are still recovering from Kyuubi Attack as you know." The aged leader turned towards his work in front of him. The Cat took this as a dismissal and turned to join his temporary team-mate.

"And Itachi…" he turned back to the aged leader.

"…Take care" The Uchiha nodded and exited the room.

 **End of Chapter**

 **Thanks for reading and don't forget to review, follow and/or fav it. It won't take long I promise.**

 **P.S: I tried to contact my beta yesterday but there is no response. I will send this anyway so forgive my mistakes (if there is any).**


	25. The mission

**Hello again people I decided to write this one pretty early. I don't know if I will write another in Christmas but if I can't take this as your Christmas present.**

 **(P.S: Itachi is 10, which means he this is his first year in ANBU and Naruto 6, he is (had been) training under Madara for 2 years.)**

 **Beta'd by TheOnlineAnarchy**

 **CH 24: THE MISSION: START**

The Cat spied the other masked man leaning against the wall across the door. The man turned to him and walked silently to the exit. The ANBU shrugged and followed his teammate for the mission. The man let out a disappointed sigh.

"I wish the old man knew the concept of neutrality," Skull muttered. The ANBU stilled for an unnoticeable moment before turned his head to the man.

"What do you mean?" The man snorted.

"I know why you are here, the old man wants my alliance." The young ANBU turned back to his way.

"No, I am here for the mission and the mission alone." He replied but it hardly worked. The masked man hummed in boredom as a reply.

"So, he didn't ask you to 'get to know me and bond with me.' Which he thought more important than an S rank?" The ANBU's eyes widened.

"How did you know?" The man shrugged.

"Call it a hunch." The ANBU narrowed his eyes and reached to his sword.

"Did you spy on us?" he asked with the obvious threat. The man looked at the sword then to the ANBU's eyes and shook his head.

"What if I did? Are you really going to attack me in the Hokage tower?" If possible the ANBU's eyes got even more narrow and he dropped his arm to his side. He couldn't see it but he felt man's grin.

"I thought so."

They continued their path to the North Gate.

"Did you spy on us?" The ANBU unsheathed his sword and took an offensive stance, the man barely reacted it with just turning towards the ANBU.

"Yes, I did. What are you going to do about it?"

Cat lunged to the Skull and swung his sword vertically with a deceptive wide arc. It hit the masked man and split him in two. The parts then burst into some dark smoke. The ANBU looked around to find his opponent.

"Looking for me?" the man appeared behind him. Before he could react, the man kicked his back hardly, caused him to fly uncontrollably to the forest near. He grabbed trunk of a tree and swung himself around and landed to a branch. He weaved handseals.

 **"Katon: Goukakyu no jutsu" (Fire style: grand fireball technique)**

He blew a fireball as big as a single house. The man sighed, take a deep breath and blew back as a fireball that swallowed the one Cat blew and continued to the forest. Just as he was going to shunshin away from danger he felt a hand on his shoulder that disrupted his chakra. He looked behind to get… mask to mask with Skull. The man pointed to ground between them and fireball and flicked his finger up. An earth wall nearly as big as a mountain blocked the fireball. Skull then pointed to the wall and flicked the finger down, the wall got back to the ground it got raised like it wasn't there. Other than some bare soil tracks nothing remained. The cat tried to get back to action after his fascination was over but found himself unable to move. Ink-like markings started to cover him as he understood what happened.

'He put a juinjutsu on me when he grabbed my shoulder' Cat sighed inwardly, and the man nicked Cat's hand with a kunai. He looked at his hand confusedly before the man put his hand to his eyes. When he pulled back they were back in the hokage tower, his hand was on his sword and the man was looking at him. He couldn't bite back the startled gasp that left him. The man grinned behind his mask.

"Enough with games, we have a mission to complete." Finding nothing else to say, cat went to follow skull however one little detail stopped him…

The nick on his hand stung.

He hastily turned his gaze to his hand and, yes, it was there…

The nick skull put on his hand while they were in his Genjutsu.

"What!" The Masked man turned to the young ANBU.

"Ah, right. I can reflect what happened in Genjutsu to real world." The man said matter-of-factly which both awed and terrified the boy. 'Not without some price however...' The man thought as metallic scent of blood reached to his nonbleeding nostril.

"The mission is at the Fire Lord's castle. The Fire lord's daughter is wedding with Wind Lord's nephew to strengthen the shaky alliance between wind and fire caused by Orochimaru's past actions in the Wind country. They are expecting Anarchists to sabotage the wedding and break the alliance fully to start a war between two countries. The wind country asked to not bring any ninja to the wedding and if we get caught it would mean betrayal from fire country and because of Konoha's recuperation from Kyuubi attack Wind may get bold and wage a war with us." Skull rolled the scroll back and Cat listened patiently of the mission's details. They were near the gates of Konoha.

"Our best course action is sneak in the wedding, and we have 3 options; disguise as a guard, disguise as a servant or disguise as someone invited to the wedding." Cat nodded.

"Let's reach the capital and see what we can do from there." The cat said and they jumped to trees, on way to the capital of Fire Country.

 **End of Chapter.**

 **Here you go my dear readers. If you have anything on your mind feel free to write it as a review. And new readers, I would like it if you fav or follow my story. I am out.**

 **Bye**


	26. Meanwhile

**For the record, this chapter was supposed to come earlier but i couldnt write because the word decided to be an ass to me. Then there was finals of my uni and xmas preparations bla bla bla… all just excuses. Anyway here is the chapter you were waiting for (right?)…**

 **CH 25: MEANWHILE**

 **Konoha**

Of course Naruto couldn't risk being discovered before he got enough experience with his powers for them to get nearly instinctual like breathing, so he summoned a super bunshin to replace himself in Konoha before going to missions disguised as the Skull to avoid detection. He figured detection meant check-mate for him after seeing the demise of the Kurama clan's heir and hope; constant watch and subjugation if he even took a suspicious breath. This wouldn't let him reach 'his' dream; world peace, also world peace demands certain power high he was quite far right now. He also had to send some for his training with the self-proclaimed "ghost of the Uchiha clan" and bear the ever-cumbersome resistance seals he drew on himself. All that equaled to a growing but exhausted Naruto with constantly stretched chakra networks and a grumbling old fox that was near constantly healing his overstained body.

Still, with this kind of life his power and skill to use that power grew highly; his chakra had long since dwarfed the old hokage and the ghost – his yin chakra anyway. From his birth his yin chakra was stretched to its limits to balance the monstrous yang half of the nine tails. This automatically converted his chakra nature to yin, a nature that excelled on genjutsu and some quite ominous powers like leeching on another person's chakra and mind. His yang was while not as impressive as its counterpart, was quite high for other ninja. He couldn't reach to the old man's level but won't be long, certainly higher than any ANBU that operated under him.

There is another reason that he left a super bunshin in Konoha; it could create other kage bunshin that upkeep the little spy network he had in Konoha.

Which got a whiff on the recent event; cloud-leaf negotiations.

Apparently, the new Raikage that rose to the leader seat after the third great ninja war got quite impressed with the fourth's speed and decided to ally with Konoha out of respect to his 'rival'. It is smelling fishy if you ask Naruto and he wouldn't let this go without close watch. He didn't and it was the right choice; the 'negotiator' was watching the Hyuuga compound closely, too closely.

And we found ourselves on Naruto's current dilemma.

'How am I going to stop that man if he decides to do something he wasn't supposed to do?' he racked his brain for an answer to that question. But he didn't have much time because the man ditched his guards and started his move. Naruto decided to watch from shadows for now and think something when the time come.

 **LINE**

The man kidnapped the heiress.

The man kidnapped the Hyuuga heiress.

The man kidnapped the all-seeing clan's heiress and they were blind to it.

Naruto would laugh it up if it weren't so serious. He rubbed his forehead in an 'I can't believe this' expression instead. The man was making a beeline to the borders and he sent a clone to play 'defenseless, innocent boy that got lost' on the kidnapper's way and sneaked behind him to knock him out in right moment… maybe.

 **LINE**

He did it! He managed to abduct the Hyuuga heiress that will bring the powers of the Hyuuga clan to their village and more importantly even more respect to him. It wasn't that he was unsure of himself about the success of the mission but he allowed himself to celebrate it before end of the mission. The Raikage will make him a council member - NO his right hand! Maybe even the new Raikage after his reign. He could imagine it…

"I, the fourth leader of our precious and glorious village hidden in clouds, hereby step down from my seat and nominate our best shinobi, the best candidate, and the most deserving of the Raikage seat, currently head shinobi of the cloud…"

His dream got rudely interrupted by a blonde boy.

"Mister please help me. I thing I got lost" the boy pleaded. He looked at the boy in confusion for a moment before took a better look at his appearance.

Blond hair, blue eyes, tanned skin…

His eyes widened.

This boy looked so much like the forth hokage.

This must be his son.

He grinned and thanked his luck for this random fortune.

"Of course, come with me little boy." The walked near the boy and raised his hand for the boy to hold and prepared himself to send a sharp jolt of lightning to knock him out. Just there was inches between their hands the boy looked behind him and he felt a sharp pain on his head and darkness captured his eyesight.

 **LINE**

Naruto dropped the stone he used to knock the man out and turned to his clone and raised his hand. It looked at him in confusion. He went to the sack to check on the little girl's condition. A sharp gasp stopped him from opening the sack. He disguised to Skull and did a nod that translated to 'do your job'. The clone gave a nod of understanding before get back into the role. Skull opened the sack and got eye to eye with the heiress. He allowed himself to be mesmerized from the soft lavender orbs before set himself right with a mental slap to himself.

"Are you alright?" he asked to the girl, who gave him a shy nod.

"let's get you back to your clan. Can you walk?" he asked. She tried to stand but a wince stopped her on tracks and she sat back down, looking down. Skull sighed and piggybacked her. She yelped before blushed from embarrassment.

"let's go Naruto." The single sentence froze the heiress and he looked at the blond at the corner of her eye and buried her face on the skull's shoulder. Naruto made a snort of amusement in his head and took the Kumo ninja's hand with his one hand and hic clone's with the other.

 **END OF CHAPTER**

 **Here you go people, I hope you like it. Don't forget to play with the buttons down there.**


	27. How dare you

**Hello people to another chapter of Uzumaki's Way. In the end i ditched the office pack and downloaded another program pack and decided to write while its still brand-new.**

 **CH 26: HOW DARE YOU...**

They have body-flickered back to the Hyuuga compound, the young heiress clinging to his shoulder, the jinchuriki holding his hand and him holding the wrist of the cloud ambassador painted quite an eyebrow raising image. 2 alerted guards greeted them.

"who goes- Hanabi-sama! Quick, go for Hiashi-sama and send word to stop the research. You, wait here." the first guard barked with relief and urgency to the second and directed him. He shrugged and let go of Naruto's hand.

"Go to home, i will wrap this up and join you." he told to Naruto and shrugged the heiress to the ground. She winced when her weight pressed her sprained ankle and she leaned on his leg. He helped her to sit on ground and joined next to her, much to the guard's displeasure, and dragged the unconscious man next to him. he pulled out a book about chakra control theories and emotion control and started to read while waiting for the clan head. The ambassador twitched a couple minutes later and tried to get up. Skull punched him behind his head without interrupting his reading and the cloud ninja was back to serene world of unconsciousness. The guard snorted and the masked man flipped a page.

Several minutes later the clan head arrived with other scouts. The man spared his daughter a cold gaze, another one at the unconscious ambassador and finally turned to the masked man. Skull could feel the nervousness seeping from the girl next to him. He shook his head and returned the cold gaze of the clan head with his own behind the mask.

"you have done a great service to our royal clan of Hyuuga by rescuing our heiress and my daughter. From now on you are an honorary guest of Hyuuga clan. If there is anything you require, say so and we will do our best to provide." he said with a cold mask of formality. However under that he was so relived, he needed all of his willpower to not stagger in it. His daughters were only thing that left from his wife.

"Your daughter."

His world staggered to a stop. Hanabi gasped.

"what?"

"your daughter that I rescued. You will give her to me. I will bring her back later when I deem the time is right."

Of course Hiashi declined, violently.

"How dare you ask something like that! I take it back you are not an honorary-"

"I will take your older daughter, if you prefer so."

By now Hiashi was seeing red.

"Guards, kill this insolent cur!" the clan head barked to the crowd around. The masked man closed the book with a 'thump' and at the same time every Hyuuga charging at him fell down to ground. The masked man got up from ground and slowly walked to the clan head. The Hyuuga took a fighting stance but his daughter paused the action.

"Stop! A-alright, take me. B-but leave them alone!" the young heiress cried desperately. The masked man turned to her, and the clan head took that opportunity by rushing at him to kill him with a jyuuken move to his heart that will explode it. However moments before his palm reached the masked man's chest, the air turned to concrete for him. He couldn't move, couldn't blink or even breathe. The man slowly turned to him, the action felt like it took hours for the clan head.

"Stupid man..." the deceiver slapped him across his face hardly and he fell to the ground. The air was normal again and he gasped, gulping the air back to his burning lungs. Skull crouched next to the wheezing man.

"I decided against taking your daughter. I will take your nephew, Neji. Bring him to the clan gates in five minutes. Your daughter stands with me and if you wont be here in fifth minute, I will leave with your daughter." the man quickly got to his feet and dashed to the gates.

"and if there is anyone other than him will comes with you..." he pointed to the bodies on the ground. "… this will happen. Only this time I will kill them instead of knocking them out." it was a bluff, his powers hadn't matured enough to kill with genjutsu, yet, but you didn't need to be strong when you have the fear of unknown with you. He knew this firsthand. The man sent a glare to the masked man and resumed his way. He sat next to the young heiress. She was sorrowfully gazing at the ground, wishing with all her mind this was just a nightmare that she was about to wake but unfortunately it wasn't. The man next to her sighed.

"I am not going to hurt your cousin and you can see him if you wish."

"why are you taking him away then?"

"I will go some places and need someone to guard young Naruto when I am not around. I will train him for it… and take away his cursed seal. It will only hinder his performance." the young girl was shocked. She was sure someone was going to get hurt because of her but this showed it was not so… if you do not count his absence from clan grounds.

"… and when the time comes, I will take him… if he wishes, of course."

She tentatively asked. "Where?"

"I will have to kill you if I say." a pause. "Do you still wish to learn?" she gulped and shook her head quickly. "Good girl." he grinned and petted her head. She winced at the deceptively soft touch of the cruel man.

The clan head arrived with a young boy with long, silky hair, pale white eyes and bandaged forehead. The boy was sleeping in the clan head's arms. He panted as he reached them.

"Hiashi… Hiashi!" There was another man screaming the clan head's name. "What are you doing with my son?!" he asked in anger and worry. He looked in front of him to see a masked man and Hiashi's older daughter. He turned at his brother with confusion.

"What is the meaning of this?" he ignored him and moved to the masked man when he got next to him he turned to his brother.

"Forgive me, Hizashi." he turned back and offered the young boy to the masked man. His sibling realized that his clan leader was going to give his son to the masked man and yelled for his brother to stop while dashing to them. Just as the masked man about to take the boy, his clone popped and memories flung to his mind. He jolted… and dropped his arms. He growled a curse under his breath.

"It seems-" he caught the palm of the boy's father and buried his punch to the man's gut. The man coughed up blood and brought one of his arms to his gut to try to soothe the pain. He let go of the man's hand to let him collapse to the ground and kicked the same spot he pummeled. The man couldn't get up.

"It seems I will have to take him later..." he turned around to walk away.

"What?" the clan head couldn't bite back the question to the turn of events. The man ignored him and just calmly continued his way while the man behind him checked his brother after he didn't got up. He shouted to some servants to bring a medic. The masked man walking calmly, however inside he was raging up a storm.

'How dare you try to kidnap me… Danzo'

 **End Of Chapter**

 **I played around the canon and this came out. Tell me what do you think.**

 **P.S: I have waited several days and it seems like I can't contact with my beta… so can anyone be my beta? PM me.**


	28. Back to the Mission

**CH 27: BACK TO THE MISSION**

 **MEANWHILE - WITH THE ORIGINAL NARUTO**

* * *

They had managed to sneak in to the ball, disguised as a lord and lady they managed to knock out and stole their invitation. They were sitting at benches near the groom, bride and the mont that was wedding the former two. The lord, Skull, was casting a genjutsu over the bride, Cat, while 'she' was using 'her' sharingan to look discreetly for anyone with for oddity; unusually high chakra, twitchiness, unusually sweat... however the guards were giving them odd looks and Skull knew their time was limited...

... until he got the memories of the shadow clone that Danzo's root tried to kidnap and Skull's chakra spiked. everyone got uneasy looks and looked around for any danger. The guards walked around the room and finally one stopped in front of them. The skull thought about using genjutsu to make him arrest someone else but another plan stopped him. So he waited for them to come.

"You are coming with me." the guard ordered them. He could feel Cat tensing behind him and preparing to use 'her' sharingan. He gently and subtly elbowed 'her' to stop.

"What's the meaning of this? Do you know who am I-?" but the guard was not having any of that.

"Please don't make it hard sir, just come with us." he put his hand to his blade for an obvious threat.

"This is unacceptable... I will have your head when its over!" he raged but complied nevertheless.

"You too milady." 'She' tensed and glanced at 'her husband'. He nodded, so they both followed the guard. Eyes following them, they walked past over the room and got out of the door.

"Guardsman..." Skull called for the man with his original voice the man turned towards him in shock and last thing he saw was creepy red eyes staring with a comma and three, spinning tomoes at him ...

* * *

'newly appointed' 'guardsman' coughed and choose a different pitch to his voice. He got into the wedding room and rushed to his superiors.

"Sir, Akaru-sempai said he need help." he whispered to his captain. The man turned to the 'newbie' with an annoyed face.

"what is it now?" he asked. His subordinate got nervous.

"H-he didn't said anything else, sir, just asked your help." the man grumbled some colorful curses.

" ! Show the way." with a quick 'hai' the guards proceeded to the door. They got out of it and the captain got chills as soon as they closed the door. He looked around to see Akaru on the ground with another man with black cloak and cat mask next to his body. He turned to the newbie and, to his horror, another cloaked man with skull mask. It was last thing he saw before darkness closed around his sight, from edges of it to middle of it...

* * *

They left the guards in a toilet, sleeping, both in one cabin, butt naked and in an... interesting position, the subordinate's head on captains lap... Skull grinned to the idea of when someone walked in and get a good look at them... he bit his lip to stifle a giggle and coughed to disguise some he couldn't hold back. The cat was blushing behind his mask at what they have done... no matter how ingenious it was. They won't even be listened before they losing their heads... the skull turned serious once more.

"We will continue what we were doing. I will sweep a little of my killing intent and walk around to nerve them. Make sure your eyes on everyone, they will show themselves one way or another." he opened the door and they returned to 'their' posts. 'the captain' walking behind the guests. The broom and bride shared sake and weared rings as per tradition. It was after that things got serious with one of the lords brought his hand to his kimono and reached for something. They see it was a long, curved object... as far as they can guess over the clothing but they both neared for the would-be assasin. He brought out a dagger and 'guards' rushed to the lord, pushing others away if required and made it in time before the man stabbed it to the groom's gut. Cat hold his gand while Skull brought 'his' sword to the mans neck.

"You are arrested for trying to assassinate the daimyo-sama's nephew." they saw another one trying to make a run for it but Cat made it before the man flee and kicked his leg. the man was on the floor. The 'captain' nodded to his 'subordinate'.

"Lets go" he ordered, both to his subordinate and the man under his sword. The first assassin complied hastily over the threat of the sword and Cat dragged the second, kicking and screaming away from the door. The screaming continued for a moment more before it was eerily silent. The guards came back without others and it was clear what happened, the assassin were dead. The ceremony was over not long after, they had to wait for others to get over the incident and monk to say his final words to the newly wed couple. With their mission success, they dropped their henge around somewhere deserted and made a bee-line to the village hidden in leaves.

* * *

"you are quite young but also quite effective and calm in stressful moments. I thought you were gonna bust us in front of that guard..."

"of course, I am an Uchiha" the man snorted at him and grinned behind his mask.

"...and you didnt get squeamish when we put them in that position... much... too much" the man snorted a laugh and the uchiha puched his shoulder none too gently. The man rubbed his shoulder while snickering. He turned serious.

"But you have too much arrogance at your uchiha blood. Your senses are a little dull..." the uchiha tried to interrupt but the man continued. "... other than sight, at least. Remember, your uchiha blood won't save you then your neck is under a blade or your sharingan wont save you if it got gouged out by your enemy, or if an enemy is out of your sight. It also wont help if you are too slow or out of breath. I may be wrong but I don't think you have much stamina, good chakra control, but again not very high chakra." they threaded a little more in silence, the 'older' man debating on something and decided something after a minute or two and stopped, causing the 'younger' one to stop too. Then turned to the young uchiha.

"However, those can be remedied with right training – or kicked out with it, and its a training I can give to you... if you accept, of course." the Cat had widened eyes behind his mask and froze for a moment before he bowed deeply.

"it would be my honour, Skull-sama."

"ah, dont call me 'skull-sama' now, I may get spoiled..." he muttered the last part under his breath but itachi heard him and grinned behind his mask.

'he is just like you, shisui... a very strong invidual and very deadly when serious... but have a soft side too...'

"Now lets get your trainig start!" he exclaimed loudly and slapped Itachi's back. Itachi grunted in annoyance for a moment before he felt something strange, he felt more sluggish and even lifting his legs to walk started to get hard, not hard enough to stop him but he had to put slightly more effort to do the action.

"What have you done?"

"I gave you one of my seals, normally I use it to completely immobilize my enemy but I gave you a watered down version. Its restricts your movement to a certain degree, and you cant get used to it because it will increase the restriction every time you start to getting used to it. This way you will slowly but surely gain stamina and strenght, and your yang chakra will forced to grow. It will be hard but its a hardness you have to endure if you want to protect your precious people." they jumped into the trees of the forest outside of the capital.

"do you have it too?" he asked. The man only chuckled.

"i have them since I am four... if I were to say, it restricts me as much as solid concrete now." the 'younger' one gulped and they fell silent.

'Right, now I can focus back on you... Danzo' the Skull's eyes glowed red(but without slip-pupils) and the suffocating killer intent hit the forest harder than his clone's. He could hear Itachi's gasps but he ignored him and hasted a little more to not to suffocate his young 'charge'...

 **End of Chapter**

 **it turned out to be a slightly longer chapter. I still need a beta reader, so if you are confident with your grammar and may have time (and not to mention getting the chapter a little earlier) dont be shy to send me PM. Thanks, im out.**


	29. Judgement Day

**CH 28: JUDGEMENT DAY**

 **I have a song suggestion;** **Divinity II: Ego Draconis - music - "Damian Attack".**

 **Konoha Gates**

"Go and report to the third." Skull ordered the ANBU

"Skull-" Cat tried to say something...

"Train with Shisui untill I am back." ...he cut the ANBU

"How do you know-"

"You can communicate with me over Naruto."

"Skull!" the ANBU grabbed the man's arm.

The masked man turned to him slowly and the ANBU immediately regretted his action. The Killer intent slammed to him like a sledgehammer and he doubled over and nearly hurled. He had to lean into a tree to not to fall down face first.

"Right now is not a good time, Itachi. Go and do as I say, I have some urgent work to do and will join you later." the man turned his back to the young ANBU and started to walk away. On the way he slowly dissolved into a swarm of moths while the Uchiha took some time to reorient himself before flickered into the Hokage tower.

 **With Skull**

'Trying to blackmail me with myself, eh? Lets see what will I do to you.' Naruto thought with cold fury and proceeded to the hidden entrance to the head quarters, his eyes changing to a deep red.

His pupils slowly got slitted until they look like they were cutting the eye, black cracks branched from corners of his eyes towards his pupils and shadows started to become darker and made the already eerie air of the building even more omnious. Walls and ground started to crack as his chakra and killer intent slowly climbed to its peak but he did not let it spike high enough to break apart the walls, nevertheless spider cracks formed on the ground he treated. He got in front of the study room and took deep breaths to calm himself down, he couldn't kill the old bastard yet. He still was playing a vital part in Konoha; root was supporting the shaken power of konoha after the kyuubi's attack.

'However... I still can experiment...' he grinned soullessly behind his mask and proceeded into the room. Danzo was not here. He grinned at his luck, without him here, things would be easier.

Suddenly he ducked a little and a tanto passed not a hairs breath away from his head. He turned to the man with the offending weapon with a chuckle.

" I know I am not exactly invited here but was that necessary?" The Root ninja took a defensive stance and Skull heard another one rushing elsewhere, probably to get some reinforcements. The invader grinned contently, they even doing his hard work for him. His chakra spiked and torches started to flicker like the fire itself were choking. His eyes started to glow.

"It is not exactly your fault that your commander tried to blackmail me. But unfortunately, you are in a cross fire..." the shadows started to stir and the torches were about to snuff out. Stuttering gasps could be heard from the ROOT ninja but he stood his ground like he programmed to do.

"...So, for the best, don't struggle... it will be over soon" it all happened so fast...reinforcements arived, shadowy tendrils arose from every shadow and attacked root ninja, the torches finally gave out...

...Some fighting sounds arose, followed by agonised screams echoed through the HQ and more and more root rushed to the source of the sounds... only to keep it up even more. Ten minutes later the sounds left their place to an eerie silence. It too gave its place to sandal 'clack's and shuffling cloth of sitting down and it was silent once more...

 **(end the song)**

 **Ten-some minutes later...**

The meeting with the orochimaru was over and he couldnt help thinking the snake was as useful as ever... to think, the man's anatomical genious can let him use the Shodaimes's legendary affinity; the **mokuton** , and more importantly, use it as a cataclyst to use the power with potencial to even exceed that power... it was such a shame that the man had to run from the village, all the more reason to overthrow the fool Hiruzen and reclaim the opportunities lost to the man's morals... He snorted.

What use a ninja has for morals? It is to win and see the next day or lose and die in the darkness. thats what being ninja meant, what ninja _should have_ meant. The cripple shook his head, the new generation was soft from the peace. Peace and ninja couldnt co-exist, no matter how much one tries, how hard one tries and how long one tries. And it was staining even-

 **(another song suggestion: DOS2 ost: halls of penitence)**

Danzo shivered, a ninja intuition alerted him about a potential threat. His eyes hardened and he stowed his thoughts back to depths of his mind and stopped. He absently reailsed his guards copied him in alertness, ready to defend their master if any threat showed itself.

"Ah, Danzo-san, you finally arrived." an omnious masculine voice echoed through halls, making the convoy even more tense. "Don't worry, there isnt any traps. I am in your study." the man nodded a silent order to their trap specialist to check anyway. The man scanned the room for any seals or invisible ninja wire. Several moments later the specialist nodded and the convoy proceeded. The way was getting darker gradually - well, darker than normal, something that didnt got missed by anyone – and long hall made them more and more tense. They reached to the door of the study. The door was ajar but inside was pitch black, so nothing was visible inside. Still, that didnt stop them from proceeding. The guards got around of the old leader and they got ready for anything.

"Ah, right the darkness must be making you unconfortable. Let me fix that."

There was a flicker and one of the torches lit up. The sight didnt exactly confroted them however. It was like there had been an invisible wall and anyone got near it was got petrified. There was Rows and rows of petrified ROOT ANBU was standing there. One of the guards touched a petrified ninja and nothing happened. He waved his hand in front of the ninja and still nothing happened. He weared off the petrified man's mask.

"Danzo-sama." the cripple got next to the man and took a look at the cripple's face.

The man's mouth was wide open and was drooling, some blood trailed down from his nose and mixed with drool on his chin. However the most odd part was the man's eyes. It was like color and life got drained away, leaving only a dot for pupil and a circle for iris. A sipping noise drew their attention away from the ROOT and back to the study desk.

Seated on the desk was a cloaked man with a chalice filled with dark red liquid on hand, sipping every now and again. They tried to gaze at the man's face but the same pitch dark was covering his face. He put the chalice away and put on a mask, a Skull mask. He got up from the seat and treated towards them.

"Sorry for the... incident... in your quarters, Danzo-san. You tried to kidnap someone important to me and i had to make sure you won't in the future. I left your ROOT in missions alive but my clones set some new recruits free, and if you try to recapture them... well, i dont have to say that i would be unhappy." he got nearer to the old man but a ROOT ANBU got between them with his blade near the masked man's throat. The masked man looked at the obstacle boredly behind his mask and slapped the blade. The blade got out of the man's hand and sinked into the wall right to them to the hilt. Undeterred, the ROOT tried to punch him but the man caught his hand and striked fast to his nose, knocking him out.

"Anyone wants to be the next?" the man boredly asked. The others guards coiled to dash but a hand gesture from the old leader stopped them. "it is futile." he said to his guards.

"i believe you tried to blackmail me and force me to do your bidding... for that i must kill you..." the man brought his hand to his chin. The convoy got ready for a tactical retreat but the door slammed shut and some seals appeared, they were sealed inside.

"However young Naruto-kun loves the third hokage, and the third loves the konoha. And, no matter how much i wish it was not true, Konoha needs ROOT to make other villages rethink about invading her after the Kyuubi attack. So, for now i will let you live. Send missions via Naruto-kun, if you must" he walked past the old man. He deactivated the seal on the door.

"Servants, obey Danzo-sans's orders until i say otherwise." he called to the petrified ANBU before walking away. The cripple let out a breath he didnt know he was holding and turned away from the door to the 'servants'. They all was gazing at him. He sighed and ordered them back to their work.

 **End of Chapter**

 **It is time for exams and i dont exactly have time for writing and plotting... so updates will be sluggish... more sluggish. Anyway, you know the drill, take a moment to follow/favorite/review. Thanks. (P.S: forgive me for errors)**


	30. Recollections

**The finals are over...finally. Let me get back to work and bring you the chapter you have been waiting for so long. i am gonna take some make-up exams but i managed to write this one. I hope you like it.**

 **CH:29 Recollections**

He smoked another puff from the hookah he ordered and let it puffed it out. He gazed at the white curls for a moment before put the pipe on the table, got up and checked out. He passed over the old Uchiha clan gates in his aimless walk. He stared at the gates in apathy for a moment before shook his head and passed.

'They got it on themselves' he thought to himself. 'Only one they can blame is, again, themselves.'

He had discovered the coup long before they met with Itachi. Even then his spy network on konoha would make people impressed; of course something this big wouldn't be missed by him. It was one of the reasons he took the young prodigy under his wing. he had prowess before him, that he can't argue with, but it was his tutelage pushed him to the S ranked shinobi he is today. He pushed him brutally, most probably wouldnt survive long and the Uchiha took it and preserved. He had – has – much potential however now he was out of hands, how much he will go is in his hands. He took one last look at the abandoned Uchiha compound before resumed his way. He found he had some pursuers 'disguised' behind him. He discreetly snickered as the 'rock' followed him. A walking 'rock' with shape of a box...

'Konohamaru still has a long way to go' He thought to himself and remembered the first time he met with the young boy...

 **Flashback**

"Is there something wrong jiji?" Naruto asked with a fake innocence, with all too innocent smile on his lips but he was grining cheekily inside.

Hiruzen first looked at the face on the photo added to the ninja registry then at the real one then back to the photo...

The person on the photo had red eyes, black eye shade with black tear design and black lipstick while hair was long, spiky, and black. His skin was deathly pale and looking at the camera like he was a zombie. He also had a spiky, black leather choker and skull earrings, while Naruto had blonde hair, blue eyes and sun kissed skin. The only thing the had common was six whisker-like tracks on their face.

"Are you sure this is you on the photo?" the old man asked, and no one could blame him... Naruto couldn't bite back a snort of amusement.

"Of course i am, i thought we know each other better than that." Sarutobi was not impressed at the response.

"Change it."

"Cant i change myself to the guy on the photo? I worked 6 hours for the make up and i want it to worth it." it was a lie of course... wonders of **henge no jutsu**. Sarutobi sighed before a glint brought his attention to his office's door.

A figure dashed from the door towards the Hokage before tripped something on the way and smacked face-first on the ground. It took 3 seconds for Naruto and Sarutobi to loose the bewildered expressions on their face, then Naruto's turned to an amused one while Sandaime's turned to something on the lines of 'I am too old for this stuff'. The figure was a young boy with black eyes, black hair and fair skin. He had a skullcap with his hair ran through its top in a pony tail, a blue scarf – the thing he tripped over - , a beige t-shirt with konoha symbol on it and gray shorts. He got up from ground with a groan.

"What can i do for you, Konohamaru?" Sandaime asked. Hearing the question Konohamaru lashed away from ground with a renewed vigor and made a demanding pose to the old leader.

"Today is the day you are gonna gimme the hat ye old man!" he shouted with a shuriken in his hand; a blunt, training shuriken but a weapon nonetheless. Sandaime was not impressed. Naruto let out some snickers behind the scene.

"Who are you laughing you fool?" The only reason the old man didnt facepalm was his ninja training and rank so he rubbed his brow tiredly instead. Naruto ended his snickers with a single chuckle.

"There you are honorable grandson..." a man with a dark blue full-body suit entered the office. He also had a dark blue bandana and circular shades. He panted a little and wiped the sweat on his brow with back of his left hand. "...I thought you got kidnapped. Why did you ran away?" Everyone ignored him.

"You got quite the spunk kid, you may go a long way with this kind of spirit..." Naruto applauded the young boy... then grabbed his collar. "...However you need some discipline before you kill yourself with your mouth out of the safe zone." he brought his fist up.

"Let him go in this instance! He is the honorable grandson of the third hokage and i will punish you severely if you even harm his hair!" The blue-clad man threathened. Naruto hummed to himself, looked at the Hokage then his grandson then back to hokage. For a moment he tried to imagine the elderly old hokage in the same age as the young punk in his grasp. He grinned.

"Hey hurry up and let me go!" the boy's indignant cry brought him back from his thoughts and he smacked the boy's head upside down. He nursed his head on the ground with some more groans. Naruto left the boy alone and walked on the jonin that threathened him. He let out a pinch of Kyuubi's chakra to turn his eyes red and his pupils slits. The man backed away from him to a wall. He grabbed the knob of the door and opened it.

"I dont care if he is Third's grandson. I wouldn't care if he was The fouth's son either..." He heard the old hokage choking on his pipe. He shook his head inwardly. "...he is just a punk hiding behind someone else's shadow. I take back what i said punk, you are just a pitiful spoiled kid." he closed the door behind himself.

 **End of chapter**

 **Don't forget to read and review if you like the story. I am out. (PS: forgive any typos you find... and if you don't, i need a beta reader anyway so feel free to send a PM)**


	31. Exams pt1

**Next chapter... Nothing else to say.**

 **CH 30: EXAMS**

* * *

Even if the first impressions were bad between him and Konohamaru was shaky at best, after an impressing amount of pestering from the young Sarutobi Naruto gave up and learned the boy's story over sitting on a tree trunk with him. Turns out it wasn't that the young boy was spoiled – _that_ spoiled at the least – it was just that, they were in different places of the same spectrum; o _pposite sides_. He was the unknown son of the Yondaime, Konohamaru was known grandson of Sandaime. He was hated, Konohamaru was loved. When at his age he would love to be acknowledged, Konohamaru would love to spend a day alone. He had to work hard for things to go the way he want, Konohamaru was getting them in a silver platter. Konohamaru wasn't even a gennin..,

He could destroy Konoha any time he wanted,

Cast Ninjutsu that would destroy armies in moments,

Easily overpower Tsunade's chakra enhanced monstrous strenght,

His genjutsu would enslave even the best ninja specialised in genjutsu, Uchiha or even Hyuuga with their doujutsu...

Madara would be the prime example...

He was brought back to the real world when the 'rock' bumped his leg.

"Oh a rock! With shape of a box and last i checked wasn't here but i ain't complaining." He exclaimed loudly and sat on the 'rock' "Aaah! and i was getting tired, this did the trick..." He grinned and started to wait. He knew Konohamaru couldn't be counted as a patient person and it won't be long before he will try to wiggle away from his current dilemma. He didn't had to wait long as the 'rock' started to shake.

"What? Is this a living rock?" He decided enough is enough and got up from the 'rock' and lifted the carton from the trio of academy students.

"You need to get better on your sneaking skills, Konohamaru" he exclaimed in a smug tone, the boy grinned sheepishly and rubbed back of his head.

"Thanks for the tip boss! I wanted to say if you wanna play ninja with us?" the young Sarutobi asked. Naruto sighed inwardly and shook his head. The kids were going to ninja academy and still playing ninja and thinking the job is all rainbows, daisies and rescuing innocent people from evil ones... still, they were children and still can be children. He put a soft smile on his face.

"Forgive me Konohamaru, maybe later" he ruffled the boys hair and chuckled at his pout.

"Catch ya later then boss! Lets go guys!" The kids sped away and waved at him. He responded with his and resumed his way to their team meeting spot. Kakashi said he had something important to tell them. A yelp he recognised as Konohamaru's stopped him on his tracks and he hurried to the place it came from... only to came to the sight of a... maked up boy with a cat-like costume holding Konohamaru by his neck and a 4-pig-tailed blonde girl with mostly white battle kimono watching them in a half disinterested and half exasperated mood.

"Let him go Kankuro, the boy even apologized for running into you." the girl called to the boy, Kankuro, but the boy didn't showed any sign to do that.

"Don't worry Temari, this little punk just needs to learn to be careful. I am just going to teach him that." He pulled his fist back but couldn't punch the little boy. He turned with a startle to see Naruto holding his wrist with an unimpressed gaze.

"You need to think twice before assaulting a civilian in a foreign country, Sand ninja... and even more than that if that person is the grandson of the Third Hokage." He raised his Kunai armed hand to the hand holding Konohamaru. "I suggest you let the boy go before you lose a hand" He threathened coldly, Kankuro dropped Konohamaru and the boy ran back to his group. Naruto's eyes flickered to his left and he flinged the kunai to that way. A wall of sand rose and protected its user by swalowing the projectile. The sand spit kunai back to Naruto, who simply caught it and pocketed it back to his ninja pouch. His gaze moved to a red haired boy with a black battle kimono. There was a kanji for 'love' tatoo on his eyebrow and there was black circles around his eyes. He also spotted Sasuke sitting on the branch beneath the one Suna boy standing.

 **"Be carfeul Naruto. He has my brother, Shukaku"** Tsukimaru warned from his forest. He narrowed his slitted red eyes and a thoughtful frown appeared on his mouth. **"He is the least powerful of us but i sense a great deal of pain-induced madness. Something is not right here, he wasn't the most stable of us but never actually mad and his status right now may cause some problems."** the bijuu analysed,Naruto hummed thoughtfully.

'Maybe i shall take a look at his seal then. There is probably a malfunction at it... if it wasnt the intention at least...' He replied and mentally noted.

He let the tension left his body and let Kankuro's wrist go. The black haired boy rubbed it a little before went back to his sister, all the while his eyes didn't left Naruto. The blond acknowledged Sakura's presence by lazily raising his hand to her general direction. His eyes fell at their 'teacher' above an apartment, suppressing his chakra as much as he could to sneak-watch them. He snorted at the man's attempt and returned his attention to the sand team. The red haired boy had shunshined to his teammates, at least the blond guessed they were his teammates. He threw a nod towards Sakura to Sasuke, telling him silently to join her.

"You are disgracing our village, Kankuro." the red head reprimanded his teammate coldly.

"But Gaara, it was the boy-"

"Shut up or I will kill you." Kankuro's mouth snapped shut. Gaara turned to the blond.

"I am sorry for my brother's brashness." He apologised. Naruto waved his hand

"No harm done."

"I guess we will compete in Chuunin exams..."

"Uzumaki Naruto"

"...Uzumaki Naruto. Try not to die, mother wants your blood." Naruto grinned.

"Are you calling Shukaku your mother, Gaara?" the sand trio stiffened from the little implication. Naruto chuckled.

"I will have to dissapoint but..." He let loose some of his killing intent and treated to the red head. "Your 'mother' will not get what he wants this time" he touched the boy's shoulder and all sand fell down for a moment before spiked around and only thing Gaara could hear was his mother's screams. He fell down to his knee and held his head. Naruto joined his team while the red head was reeling from the migraine.

"Later." Naruto threw a wave over his shoulder and resumed his way to their meeting spot. Sakura and Sasuke following him after a neutral look towards Suna team from Sasuke and a worried glance from Sakura. Gaara recovered before long and Suna team had different thoughts on the incident but there was one line they all shared...

'Uzumaki Naruto... just who are you?' they thought simultaneously.

* * *

 **End of chapter**

 **I am sorry for the long wait but i wanted to have some time to relax and unwind. I didn't had much time with the summer school, still continuing btw, but i get what i can. You know the drill, review/follow/fav if you like the story.**

 **Bye**


	32. exams pt2

Kakashi hadn't stayed long or told much, just gave them their passes and told them they don't have to enter if they don't wish. Naruto knew that was a lie, they cant participate if they didn't join as a team but he understood where the man was coming; he thought they may force Sakura to participate for them so he didn't said anything... not that it was required anyway, he learned next day, Sakura decided to join. Sasuke would join, it wasn't a secret and he came to see if they are getting into exam or not; he knew his limits, he didn't need to show it to others... he preferred not to – if possible – actually, a shinobi's most effective weapon is deception.

"So, here we are..." Sakura muttered. They were in front of the academy, the first part of the exam is going to take place here. Sasuke grunted and Naruto hummed without raising his head from a book he was reading. It was a book about fuinjutsu he 'borrowed' from his father's study... he snorted at the Konoha's gall and pettiness to keep him away from what is rightfully his... at least their tries.

Don't get him wrong, he is a seal master with high prowess but he was still couldn't reached to his father's level – no matter how much it embarrassed him – and he needed to be better at seals for the technique in his mind, probably better than his father. Still it was a good start before he get to the decomposing heart of the fuinjutsu...

...Uzushiogakure, his ancestral home from mother's side.

" **What if the only thing left from uzu is ashes and bones?** " his ever-so-optimistic bijuu questioned. He sighed.

" _Then I will use edo tensei to bring back someone to teach me."_ Tsukimaru grunted.

 **"Don't forget to bring some sacrifices then"** Naruto figured the bijuu must be still upset from seeing – so to speak – his brother's condition, so he said nothing else.

"Let's go." Sasuke led them inside. They had to get into the room 302.

Nothing interesting happened in the ground floor, they got to the second one and saw the room 302... there was a commotion around the door. They arrived just in time to see a 'boy' smack a girl away from him. Naruto sensed the henge almost instantly but didn't said anything to see if others did it too... they hadn't. Sasuke frowned and took the initiative to get them inside but Naruto stopped him by grabbing his elbow.

"Don't. Just let them weed out the weak, this isn't the exam room anyway." He explained.

"Do you mean the genjutsu?" Sasuke asked. Sakura answered instead of him.

"He is right Sasuke-kun, we are in the second floor but the number starts with 3 – which means the exam, in fact, in the next floor." She analyzed. Sasuke nodded.

"What should we do then?"

"Lets just discreetly get to the stairs." Naruto suggested.

They got to the stairs but got caught on the edge of the staircase.

"Hey you! Where do you think you are going?" the 'boy' from before shouted at them. Sasuke got ready for a possible fight but Naruto handled it.

"Our sensei asked us to meet at the roof, so we were getting to there." He lied. The boy smirked.

"Smart, but you wont be able to get inside from window." Naruto sighed and ignored the boy and proceeded to the stairs.

"You are not getting away!" the boy dashed at him. He felt another presence nearing at him other than the 'bully' but he decided to act just in case. It wasn't necessary as moments later a boy in green spandex suit blocked the 'bully's' kick. He gazed at boy-in-green.

"You was the one to suggest we shouldn't draw attention to ourselves but you just did something opposite." A Hyuuga – judging by the unique eye color – reprimanded his teammate while he and the girl from before threaded to them. He figured the girl was his teammate too. They both ignored the Hyuuga, causing him to glare at them.

"You should be more careful genin-san." The boy politely advised. Naruto just chuckled.

"Thank you..." He paused.

"Lee, Rock Lee. Nice to meet you" Lee introduced himself with a sunny grin.

"...Lee. But, you see, it wasn't necessary..." Lee frowned in confusion, but the question was from the Hyuuga.

"What do you mean?" Naruto pointed to up. They all looked up to see another Naruto reading his book upside down.

'Fast' was the collective thought.

"... I am just a kage bunshin." 'Naruto' finished before disappearing in a puff of smoke. The real Naruto jumped down from the ceiling on his feet and turned to his teammates.

"Let's go, we may be getting late." he reminded and passed by his teammates. Sakura turned to a clock she saw on their way.

"There is still roughly quarter of an hour before the exam starts."

"We still best get going."

"Wait!" the Hyuuga called behind him. He turned around.

"What is your name?"

"Uzumaki Naruto. Yours?"

"Hyuuga Neji." Naruto grinned.

"He is Sasuke and she is Sakura. Good luck on the exam, Neji." Neji mirrored the grin and gave a firm nod.

'Uzumaki Naruto, eh?' Neji thought as he saw him making small chat with Tenten – probably to get to know her a little before going for the exam, then his gaze passed over Lee and Naruto's teammates, Sakura and Sasuke. Lee was traumatized, Sasuke was unimpressed and Sakura was more than a little creeped out. He approached them and turned to Sasuke for answers. He rolled his eyes.

"He asked Sakura out. You can imagine the rest..." Neji heard Lee murmur 'too weird' repeatedly and deadpanned. He shook himself quickly however and got serious.

"Your teammate is a little weird..." Sasuke turned his head at him.

"Yes, Sakura is wasting-"

"Not her, Naruto." Sasuke turned fully.

"Why do you think so?" Neji raised an eyebrow.

"We are going to compete against each other, why is he so friendly towards us knowing that?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow.

"What about Lee? Why did he stopped an attack towards Naruto?" Sasuke countered. Neji was sheepish in Hyuuga-ese, which translated to looking away.

"He is... hotblooded." Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"I think he didn't see you as a serious threath." Neji raised his eyebrow in indignation.

"Are you saying he is underestimating us?"

"No, I am saying he didn't thought you as a lethal threat... you wont try to kill us if things goes south... right?" Neji thought a little.

"No, passing an exam doesn't worth getting blood of my comrades on my hands. And i am sure others thinks so too."

"Good, because we met a team of Suna yesterday and one of their members threatened him directly."

"What happened?"

"i don't know what exactly but he brought the boy to his knees and paralyzed with a single touch... pretty much defenseless." Neji took a moment to ponder what he heard before something came to mind.

"Why are you telling me all this?" Sasuke shrugged.

"I dont want to have blood of a comrade on my hands too, so i am making sure you dont do something stupid and get yourself killed."

"Do you think he would kill us?"

"Well, Suna is our ally but it didn't stopped Naruto or that boy... I wouldn't suggest you to try your luck and make your choices carelessly."

"Let's go Sasuke!" Naruto called at him. He turned to Neji one more time.

"Bye and good luck" began climbing the stairs.

'Uzumaki Naruto, eh?' Neji thought before shaking his head and leading his team to the exam room.

* * *

 **End of Chapter**

 **Some more introductions. First phase of the chuunin exams is about to start. you know the drill, fav/follow/rewiev.**


	33. Exams pt3

The rest of the way to the exam room was mostly uneventful. Just Lee requested a match with Sasuke but Naruto hadn't let them, telling them they were getting late and it wasn't unwise to show your skills to a potential foe in the exams. Lee couldn't find a hole in his logic so he relented, however he promised them that he will fight Sasuke in the exams first time he could.

When they got into the room however...

"Sasukie-kun!"

...Well...

"Get off from Sasuke-kun Ino-pig!"

...Somethings will never change.

Sasuke was annoyed with the two kunoichi's word fight over him, Naruto was too amused to feel annoyance but his amusement was dimming so it wont be long.

It was cut short earlier.

"You people should keep it down in a place like this, everyone is already on high nerves."

It was a helpful advice, the whole room was directing their killing intent on them, making most of the so called "konoha twelve" shrink or at least get the person the advice came from was... Naruto had to take a deep breath and pressed down the battle instinct he got from Madara before he snapped and turned to the silver haired boy with a fake smile that may deceive the devil.

'It is best to not let others get dragged into it, they are nervous as it is and that info is dangerous, both for me and them' Naruto thought and cooked up a code they both will understand.

"Ah! Kabuto-san! I didn't know you were a gennin." the silverette turned to him in confusion.

"Yes I am... Do I know you?"

"Well, not me but a friend of mine was working with a place you were working. Sad that place had went down." the silver haired boy grinned in a friendly way.

"I am sorry but i worked quite a lot of places. Can you tell me which one?"

"The Restaurant of Root." Kabuto froze for a split of a moment, most likely not noticed by the gennin but Naruto noticed it clearly. His grin got a little gritty too.

"Ah yes, yes, I remember that place. Who was your friend again?"

"We call him Skull because of his skull tattoo. He joined much later after you left but he told me Danzo-san was so sad about your departure. So sad that he lost someone as... knowledgeable on his work as you..." Kabuto hummed and searched his brain for a person matching the info he got from the felt uneasy when he came up empty and made a mental note for himself to look into his notes at the first opportunity.

"What happened to Danzo-sama, i hadn't heard of him for a long time." He rubbed his head in embarrassment after asking the question. He was really curious, he hadn't heard about Danzo for quite a long time and it was ringing danger bells in his head.

"You hadn't heard? Danzo-san had a heart attack and died." he said with a fake sadness. Kabuto mirrored him but he was happy inside.

"Some say there is a foul play and they are suspicious of my friend for his rather convenient disappearance." Kabuto thought about it.

"Do you think they are right?" He asked to the blond.

"Perhaps, perhaps not... there isn't any solid proof so they are just rumors." Naruto changed the topic

"Is this your first time too, Kabuto-san?" Kabuto didn't gave any reaction to the sudden change of the topic and returned to why he came smoothly. He shared some of the knowledge he had with them. All run smoothly until Neji asked about Naruto. Kabuto draw his card and sent his chakra.

"There is nothing anormal, 20 D ranks and 10 C's... and oh! There is an A rank..." Naruto cut him.

"Ah, right. The mission to the wave... did you watched us? Or just Sasuke for..? " He needed to add one more word for the ANBU to chase him like a dog chases a rabbit and Kabuto knew it. He shut up wisely and put the card back. Naruto gave him a grin that roughly translated to 'good boy'.

"You were saying an A rank" Neji half asked half demanded impatiently.

"It was only ranked as an A rank for potential of the mission. We only had to guard a bridge builder from a local crime lord." Naruto answered.

"Why was it an A rank?"

"He was from Namigakure, the village hidden in waves and we ironed out a trade deal." Neji nodded. Kabuto mentioned about a new, small shinobi village named Oto. The only team from that village heard about Kabuto's dismissal of them as a probably weak village and, obviously, didn't took that well. A mummy-like boy tried to punch Kabuto on his face but he avoided it by leaning back and grinned at the failed attempt. His glasses cracked a moment later however and he started to hurl. The examiners chose that moment to arrive in a flashy smoke shunshin.

"Tell Orochimaru he needs to bring the ring if he wishes to mark Sasuke." He used the distraction the examiners made to whisper to the working ear of the silverette. Kabuto's face lost all of the friendliness he had at start and glared at the blond.

"What are you talking about?" he had an inkling about what he was talking about but he didn't thought he could know about that.

"The ring on his severed hand. And make sure he doesn't try to forge a fake, I can recognize the real one. You will bring it to me, and if it isn't on my hand in the second phase... well he can say bye to capturing Sasuke and crushing Konoha." Kabuto raised his eyebrow and smirked at him arrogantly.

"Even if you told the Third, and presuming he believed you, it wont stop Konoha from getting crushed by Orochimaru-sama. He isn't that strong anymore." Naruto's eyes lit in amusement.

"You know annihilating Root and Danzo took less than an hour... if Skull to be believed..." By now the crowd was calming and getting to their seats. The silverette glared at the ground the for a moment before smirked cruelly at the blond.

"What is stopping us to kidnap you and make your friend help us?" He asked smugly.

"Danzo tried the same thing. You can see how that turned out." The blond countered. The silverette sighed in resignation and got to his seat for the first exam.

* * *

 **End of Chapter**

 **Thanks for reading, following, favoring and/or reviewing. Sorry for my tardiness and errors... if there is any. (P.S: I am reading all of your reviews and responding your questions with PMs. It gives me a fuzzy feeling when people gives me feedback.)**


	34. Exams pt4

Naruto sighed and laid his head on the desk he had been assigned for the written exam. He gave the sheet one look and seeing the hardness of the questions, he understood the real test. It wasn't all that hard to see really, you wouldn't eliminated if you got caught cheating but got your points reduced by two. Just that part told him this exam was about cheating without getting caught and the questions itself were just bull-crap.

He lazily eyed the other chunin candidates and their attempts at cheating. He saw an examiner's eyes are a little weird and understood the suna boy with catty costume must have planted a puppet spy on the examiners. He eyed the flying eyeball with little particles of sand flying around it, some bugs watching test papers a little too intently, a mirror contraption on the ceiling and many other ways to cheat.

His eyes caught Hinata's, who's sitting next to him, and grinned with a wink. She blushed and averted her gaze. She looked at his empty sheet and an expression of worry overtook her face. He followed her gaze lazily and shrugged. He pointed her then his eyes, signaling her to activate her byakugan. It took her a moment to understand him then she did as he told. He closed his mouth with his hand but it was still visible to her byakugan. He mouthed some words but she didn't understood. He sighed and pointed her and covered his eyes with his hand. She deactivated her byakugan. He touched her and she felt strange.

"You are in my genjutsu now. Don't worry, your real body wont move and this talk will stay between us. We all got a sheet of paper with questions but the exam isn't a written test." Naruto explained.

"B-but Ibiki-san said-"

"The examiners here to weed out the weak and incompetent, in other words, they are here to fail us but there are hints. First, the questions are too hard, perhaps even for a chunin. Second, the penalty for _getting caught_ cheating is not instant fail but reducing of your points. Third, if you look carefully there are only a handful of people doing the test without any pauses. This means they are either know the questions or they are some higher rank shinobi, planted to this exam for a mean to get answers for questions. In the light of all this, the test is if we can get information without getting caught." Hinata blinked in bewilderment mixed with awe.

"Use your byakugan to copy the answers, if you wish." Hinata nodded

"T-thank you Naruto-kun, i did that. D-do you need help?" Naruto smiled softly at Hinata.

"I want to ask you something Hinata." She looked at him curiously.

"Y-yes?" He averted his eyes to his test paper.

"When we were children, why did you helped me when everyone made fun of me, ridiculed me or simply ignored me? Why did you stood by me, even from a far? What have i done to deserve it?"

Hinata turned to red entirely when she learned she wasn't as discreet as she thought. She twirled her fingers in embarrassment." I-i think it is your will. E-even when you are under such ill intent of the village you are not getting it to you. Y-your will is so strong... y-you are so strong."she confessed. "I wish i was like you" she said under her breath but he heard.

"No Hinata, you wouldn't be like to be someone like me, believe me." He said with a monotone voice. She turned to him curiously but he changed the topic.

"You are very kind... a good emotion to have in life but a liability in shinobi life." She got depressed. His eyes got softened in empathy but he knew he had to do it, for her. "if you show kindness to your enemies you will get stabbed in the back before you can take two steps away. Be kind to people you trust, but know that you have to hold it back when it comes to general ninja life. I am saying this because i came to care about you, not so that it will hurt you." he put his hand to hers, causing her blush to glow but she managed to not faint. "Please be strong, for me if not for yourself. I can never forgive myself if something happens to you." she didn't trusted her voice so she simply nodded.

"Good, the exam is about to be over." She blinked

"...So you all want to take the final question, knowing the risks? Well then... all of the people in the room... congratulations, you passed!" Naruto grinned at the Hyuuga heiress, she responded with a shy one for a moment before she spent last of her courage and averted her eyes. The examiner did some talk about value of info Naruto didn't listened. The crash of windows distracted them and they turned to a woman with brown eyes, purple hair, a mini skirt and a large coat that barely covering anything. She had a mesh body suit that covered from her neck to her thighs, (un)thankfully, so she wasn't flashing everyone she turned to... still she could turn any head she wanted or not wanted. She finished her headcount as people checked her out, trying to be discreet or some didn't even bothered to be discreet. His gaze passed over Hinata then he refocused on her in shock because she had a nice, healthy and fresh nose-bleed. He stayed saucer-eyed for a moment before mischievous nature strike as he grinned evilly.

"See something you like?" he asked huskily. She gasped and stuttered something but she still took some sneak peeks at the violette, causing Naruto chuckle devilishly in his head. "You are right, she is so hot. i wouldn't mind spending hours... making out... wi-on her lap. I also learned a clone jutsu which is solid and can bring the memory back to the user. Imagine, with a handful of them..."

 ***** thump*

She fainted. As he smirked, the violette examiner curiously looked at them but Naruto whistled innocently. She raised her eyebrow in amusement when she saw Hinata and winked at him. She then get back to business; the exam;

"27 teams? You're loosing your touch... getting old Ibiki?" She teased the scarred man. He just sighed and pinched bridge of his nose.

"this years lot is promising, if i say so myself..." Ibiki tried to save face but Anko had none of that. However they had business to do so she let it slide... for now.

"No matter, when i am done less than half of them will remain... no time to waste maggots, follow me to the place of the second part of the exam; the training ground 44 also known as..." she paused a moment to build up suspense."The forest of death!" she skipped out of the room with other genin following not far behind and much less enthusiastic about it, leaving Ibiki to collect examination papers. He found one paper without a name or anything. He tried to remember whose the paper is and remembered it was the Kyuubi jinchuuriki's.

'He knew?' he raised the paper and saw a writing behind it so he turned it around;

 _Good try, but you need to do better than that._

 _-Naruto_

'That brat...' he tried to be angry but found it surprisingly hard to suppress the smirk tugging at his cheeks.

 **End of chapter**

 **There you go guys, thanks for reading. You know the drill...**


	35. Bribe

**Hello my dear readers, today i decided to bump the rating to M but not for any lemon. I just can't really imagine Hidan without some hardcore swearing - blame the fictions i read... I understand if you decide to leave, thanks if you decide to stay. Enjoy ^^**

"Alright everyone, this is the training grounds 44 aka the forest of death..." Anko continued to embellish the training grounds, and if Naruto was really genin level it would spook him too... but he wasn't so he ignored the Mrs. flashing pineapple and -after checking her out one more time- he resumed his study on fuinjutsu.

She couldn't take it (of course).

He could feel the spike of sadism a mile away, thanks to Tsukimaru, but there was no actual killing intent so he simply let the kunai graze his cheek. A pair of warm mounds on his back was his reward... and a kunai on his throat.

"Incoming doom isn't interesting enough?" her breath grazed over his neck and he suppressed a shiver. He decided to let this last a little...

...His boss was busy anyway.

"Well, i need a way to make my chances better."

"By reading a book?" she read some lines over his shoulder. "It's gibberish" he snorted a laugh.

"i guess its normal, i doubt even the Jiraiya of the sannin can understand anything from it."

"That perv? What does he do anything with this?" he laughed again.

"Don't worry your mind over it... and i think that guy behind you brought your knife." Anko raised her eyebrow and turned behind. Indeed, there was a... woman with ridiculously long tongue was coming with a kunai wrapped around it.

"It's a woman." Anko dryly pointed out. Naruto rolled his eyes.

"Sure, sure"

"I think this is yours proctor-san." the 'grass genin' handed over the kunai on 'her' tongue. Anko took it with a grin and pocketed it.

"Thank you. Are you ready to fight for your life, genin-san?" Anko asked sweetly, like asking if the ninja was ready for listening to a tale before going to bed instead of a deadly test. The 'woman' found humor in that so 'she' chuckled before responding.

"Yes, i wouldn't be here if i wasn't right?"

"Well, that was good to be civil. I feel like i am interrupting but i am sure Anko-san here has a job to do and you, grass ninja, has preparations. You are quite lucky by the way, normally when someone points a kunai to my throat i switch to 'butcher first, as questions later' mode. I guess your breasts distracted me." Anko barked a laugh.

"Oh yeah, you got guts kid. But i am wondering how can you 'butcher' anyone when your demise is a slice away?"

"you may understand it... if you look to your right."

she twisted her neck and came face to face (more like eye to tip but you get it) with another kunai, held by another Naruto. There was less than a millimeter between he eye and the tip so obviously she froze. Even Orochimaru was wide eyed from the twist.

"Sorry i am late, the other proctors gave us some papers about legal irresponsibility of the deaths in the test to sign... and now i learn the lethality started before the exam itself." he turned to his clone "you know you shouldn't stall the main proctor, she has work to do." clone grinned.

"What can i say? Her rack is distracting from a far, when she pressed them to me it was too hard for me to think about the exam, the kunai... or anything else." Naruto rubbed his brow. He didn't knew kage bunshin could be such a perv. "enjoy..." the clone said before he got stabbed between eyes by the real. Anko flinched, kunai nicked her nose bridge before ending on the clone. He blinked twice before smirked.

'he... kinda has a point.' he shook his head at his own thought.

"Don't you have an exam to start?" he asked to the purple head. She shook herself when he asked the question. She glared at him for a moment before flickering to the stage she was on before the whole fiasco.

"Good luck genin-san." he wished over his shoulder and walked away while studying his book. Orochimaru stared at the blond's back in suspicion before he moved to his disguised subordinates.

 **SOME TIME AGO - MEANWHILE**

"Have you brought the ring?" the blond asked to the silver head next to him. They were far away from the other chunin hopefuls. He could see his clone playing around with Anko. Kabuto rummaged his pocket for a moment before he handed the blond a ring with kanji for 'Sky' on its jewel. Naruto channeled some chakra to the ring and felt a far away connection.

 **AMEGAKURE**

Nagato jolted a little from the foreign chakra presence. He thought for a moment before sent a private message to Zetsu and 'Madara' via the connection of rings.

'Something interesting happened...'

 **BACK TO KONOHA**

Naruto hummed and withdrew his chakra from the ring, severing the connection.

"Thanks." he put the ring to his pocket. " I expect to see your help in this phase." Kabuto raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"Why?"

"Orochimaru is going to brand Sasuke, Sakura is pretty much useless in this scenario and... well it is just in case anyway, i am sure Sasuke will get back to be the hot-shot rookie before long." Kabuto blinked.

"And you?" Naruto shrugged.

"I am only here so Sasuke can get into the exams. i will pitch in if he need it, of course, but i prefer no to. If i get too caught up i may reveal things i don't want to get revealed yet... now go, i already talked too much." he let the clone sense him and flickered near them like a ghost. Kabuto narrowed his eyes but did as he told.

 **END OF CHAPTER**

 **I know its short but... *sigh* well all i can offer is excuses... thanks for reading, drop a review if you can spare a few seconds, no problem if you don't.**


	36. Brand

'The pain of stabbing himself must broke him out of it.' Orochimaru mused behind his Kusa disguise as Sasuke grabbed Sakura and made a tactical retreat.

"I understand you used Daitoppa to separate us but did you really had to sic a gigantic snake after me?" the blond before asked indignantly from where he blew him away. he blinked at the genin, the encounter with Anko made him realize he was more than he looked but he wasn't really expecting this much. the blond sighed and flicked away a snake scale from his shoulder.

"just give me your scroll and go mark Sasuke." the sannin raised an eyebrow in amusement.

"you seem quite informed..." it was as much a statement as a question. the blond shrugged.

"that I am. now, the scroll." he raised his hand. Orochimaru just chuckled.

"why don't you take it?" he asked. the blond sighed again, why does everyone play hard? he sent a hard stare to the sannin, whose eyes got widened by the genjutsu cast by Naruto, the look was a medium for it.

weapons.

from axes to shuriken, swords to senbon, weapons with a sharp edge or tip was every part of his body. he tried to raise his hands for weaving the hand seals to break the genjutsu but two spears ran through his arms didn't let him and he figured he had to give the scroll. he glared at the blond, he was deliberately taking his time for getting to him, not that he looked forward for it. A time that felt like hours later the blond grabbed him by his hair and pulled him to eye level.

"Be thankful that I deem you worthy for the job on my mind, or I would finish the job Itachi started years ago." Naruto spat icily. he reached to the snake's gut with his spare hand and the sannin winced as the hand started to pierce skin and meat alike and slipped inside. it rummaged around for a moment, in which the sannin tried to escape but even with the pain the genjutsu didn't broke, to the sannin's a small part of amazement and a big part of worry. Moments later the blond was holding the scroll he swallowed before. he coughed up blood and knew that he had to shed his skin, but thankfully the blond let him go, both physically and mentally. he screwed his face in disgust and sealed the scroll to the storage tattoo on his wrist.

"go and do your thing, I will be watching." the younger one conjured some kage bunshin to find a water source for cleaning. Orochimaru shred his skin meanwhile and debated whether or not attack the blond while he seemed distracted. He decided against it but sent a last glare at the blond's back nonetheless.

 **LINE**

Naruto watched the snake sannin's neck grew ridiculously and bit the Uchiha on his neck. Their eyes met but the sannin didn't gave any reaction and just seemingly melt into ground. Sasuke howled and fell to his knees in pain for a moment then fainted. Sakura called for Sasuke… more like screamed his name to heavens (it came out a little wrong). Naruto shook his head and used a mild genjutsu to knock her out. He investigated the curse seal when she is out cold and decided it is best to use a suppression seal to minimize the damage seal was causing. He conjured 6 clones and divided them by two. He sent one squad to search for the missing one of the scroll pair (earth?), and other for find a shelter. He conjured 10 more clones to help him prepare a sealing ritual and stabbed a kunai through his hand to provide the blood requirement.

 **15 min. later**

He pulled away the kunai from his hand. He then ordered a clone to carry Sasuke to the main circle and told 3 others to hold him in place. He weaved the necessary handseals and let the ritual take place. As expected, even while he was unconscious, Sasuke moaned and thrashed from the pain. The clones didn't budged however and held fast until the ritual is complete. He sagged a little in relief. Just as he was about to relax, the squad he sent to find a shelter dispelled to send him the info of a suitable place. He sighed but summoned another duo of clones to carry the genin while he guarded them. He gazed at the sky to see sun was about to set. He started his trek to the place his clones informed him about.

 **An hour later**

It was a cave made out of a tree's roots but Naruto didn't really had the energy to care. He sat down on a root to wait. He idly watched the clone he sent for food bring some fruits and grilled fish, most likely by a Fire jutsu. He ate his fill and put some left over fruit to a storage tattoo on his arm. He drank a little water from a bamboo contained he had and waited for the last squad.

 **Another two hours later**

He was about to sleep, so when a scroll was thrown to his feet and memories of a fight against some kiri ninja was arrived to his mind, he simply sealed the scroll and lied next to his teammates. He closed his eyes and let his mind pull him.

"can you wake me up if anything happens?" he opened one eye to stare at Tsukimaru. The fox snorted.

"do you need to ask?" the blond put his hand to a whiskered cheek with a small, content smile and kissed him.

"thank you." Was the last thing he said to the fox before he let his awareness fade away to the land of dreams. pink dusted The anthro-bijuu's cheeks a little and he raked his claws at soft blond locks in adoration.

"anytime"

* * *

" **Naruto! Wake up!"** the blond groaned from ground and yawned. A spike of chakra from out of their cave beat out the last of sleepiness and he quickly carried his teammates out of it.

"Decapitating Airwaves!"

A sound ninja, the teammate of the one attacked Kabuto. His eye twitched in irritation and prepared to make some human pancakes from them but a flicker of chakra alerted him that Sasuke was about to wake up.

 **End of Chapter**

 **There you go people, I hope I did good. You know the drill, fav/follow/review. If you don't have time, do it when you do.**


	37. Spy

The last blast of chakra was felt by the sound trio as Sasuke regained his consciousness. Naruto programmed a clone to take Sakura to somewhere safe and guard her. He himself chose to watch Sasuke to see if there is a need to further intervene with the cursed seal.

" **Decapitating Airwaves** " Zaku shouted the jutsu just as Sasuke finished his hand seals with the tiger hand seals

" **Fire Style: Grand Fireball"** the fireball consumed the airwaves and continued stronger than before. With no technique to stop the fireball, the sound genin was forced to scatter. Sasuke grinned at the way his blood warmed and stalked the air user.

Zaku landed to a momentarily safe place but before he could fully reorient himself he saw Sasuke from the edge of his sight and aimed to his general direction for another shot of decapitating airwaves. He failed however for Sasuke arrived first and bent his arm behind him and pulled. When the sound genin fell to his knees he grabbed the other arm and put his foot to his back.

"It was a big mistake to attack us you fool. Let me show you how big it was…" Naruto jumped down from the branch to watch Sasuke and made his way to them.

"What are you doing Sasuke?" he asked, tone perfectly neutral. Sasuke turned his head to him but not his gaze. It was on the sound genin. His face was in an 'why are you asking questions with glaring answers' expression.

"Eliminating opposition." Naruto hummed and pulled out his Fuinjutsu book.

"Are you going to kill him?" the question came out so naturally that he may be talking about the weather. The cold sweat rolled from the sound nin could have fill buckets at this point but Sasuke hesitated. Naruto sighed and felt worse and worse but none of it showed on his body. He chanted 'it's necessary' in his mind.

"You need to get used to killing Sasuke. Being a ninja requires us to kill." He drew a kunai from the seal on his wrist and grabbed Zaku's left arm. "He knew about the risks, we all knew about the risks before entering the exam." He handed the knife to Sasuke. "it is about kill or get killed. Do you want to die?" Sasuke took the Kunai but he was _still_ hesitating. Naruto was half glad that the Sasuke he came to love was still existing in the scarred mind of the boy and half stern that he couldn't adapt to the situation at hand. A ninja that can't adapt is a dead ninja in their first lethal mission. Zaku's laughter made them refocus on the Sound ninja. Knowing that he can't get out of here alive, Zaku did his best to hurt his enemies before his end.

"The last Uchiha can't kill to save his life!" the sound ninja yelled. Both Konoha genin glared at him and Naruto pulled his arm harshly. He grunted but didn't stopped running his mouth. "it is so fortunate for Uchiha clan to get slaughtered, they would kill themselves instead. You are such a dis-" He couldn't finish as his head rolled several times in air before fell down. Moments later his body followed. Naruto threw the kunai in his hand to somewhere far. The Kunai, overcharged from the wind chakra Naruto used to make its cutting potential superb, exploded in air. Shrapnel scattered around, some piercing trees, some ground but it was ignored.

Both boys were knee-deep in their demons…

"Let's go back…" Sasuke said, he was surprisingly first to recover. Naruto nodded.

" **Naruto… it is dripping…"** Tsukimaru warned. He wiped his nose with his hand and stared at the black substance.

" _Does the statue hold?"_ The statue was a mental manifestation of the seal he had on his powers. It wasn't the only restriction on them but it was the first one.

" **it is cracked and darkness is dripping from them but it is still in one piece. It is best you repair it."**

" _I shall do it first time possible. Are they getting past swords?"_ they are the second seal, a circle of stabbed down swords with a long length of chain connecting them.

" **No but it is enough to rattle chains."** Naruto sent a mental nod.

The seals he had on his powers was not for his gain, they were for the people around him. If he didn't have yang part of Tsukimaru, then it would be part for his own. Yin chakra feed itself on the owner's negative emotions and got more… however one must have balanced yin and yang halves of chakra to live; that's why there was so little amount of yin nature shinobi, most died before they can master their power. When the balance leaned towards yang, the body of the user get an unnatural regeneration to burn the excess… but when it leans to yin, it leeched from living cells thus damaging the body. As long as emotions aren't extreme the regeneration of body can deal with it – with a shorter life span – but when the emotions got too strong…

With Tsukimaru's yang balancing his yin he managed but one day it will not be enough. And for that day he had to use seals to restrict the growth of the power. Even so sometimes he couldn't suppress it and it may damage him but he found ways to avoid it. The most effective one is drawing the power out of his body, he used to need to sacrifice some of his blood as a container for it to expel but now he could do it without a medium. However, the excess yin chakra destroyed what life it touched before it got balanced by nature chakra so he tried not to do it a lot.

They arrived back to the clearing they were in… to find the team ten guarding a bruised Sakura. He remembered the guardian clone's memories of dispelling when team ten arrived.

'I must have been pretty distracted to miss the memory' he reasoned.

"…If you don't want your teammate to die." Kin was holding a kunai on her own throat. 'Ino.' Naruto thought. He proceeded to the possessed sound kunoichi.

"Get back to your body Ino." He requested calmly. Ino scoffed.

"We got it covered. Make sure to be thank-" Naruto grabbed possessed Kin's arm, grip tight as a vice.

"Get. Back. To. Your. Body." There was an edge on his voice she never heard. It was commanding and promising severe consequences if not obeyed. Ino took a hesitant peek at his eyes and nearly winced from the coldness of his sapphire pools. She put her hands to ram seal to dispel her jutsu.

Kin had a moment to reorient herself before she was slammed to a tree behind her. A blond boy was holding her from throat. A poof later another blond was next to him. A swift but crushing heel kick delivered to her knee caused her to scream and made her leg bend to wrong way. He did it to the other without giving her any moment, renewed her screams, and put her hands together above her head. He drew a kunai and pinned her hands to the tree then original let go. She couldn't stop screaming as her weight caused her torment, putting it to her feet made white hot pain flare from her broken knees while letting it go caused same to her pinned hands. She couldn't stop tears as the blond threw a kunai to the Uchiha's feet.

"End her suffering…" was all he said and he went to the frozen mummy-shinobi. As he got closer the sound shinobi started to quiver like a leaf in wind. The ease blond in with dispatching Kin unnerved even him.

"P-please let us go. Y-you can have out scroll…" he pulled out the scroll from his pouch and threw it to the blond. Naruto caught the scroll but didn't stop.

"Who is us? Your male teammate is feeding the soil with his blood, your female teammate is…" he turned to see the girl on ground and pleading for her life to Sasuke. he had the bloody kunai on his hand.

"That could be… no, would be Sakura!" he shouted. "Don't forget what the other one did, give them what they deserve!" there was a squelching sound and Kin was no more, an underlying coldness settled on Sasuke's eyes. A minuscule, cold smirk ghosted over the blond's lips for a moment before he turned back to the trembling Sound ninja.

"… No more." He was an arm length away now. "it is just you now." The sound ninja fell to his knees.

"P-P-Please, I-I-I just want m-my life." Naruto hummed.

"you know, there is something you can do for me." Hope lit up the sound ninja's face.

"A-anything"

"You are here for Sasuke, correct?"

"Y-yes"

"Test the cursed seal on him." The sound ninja was confused.

"T-the U-Uchiha has a cursed seal?" Naruto sighed 'Mere pawns'

"Yes… What's your name?"

"D-Dosu"

"Dosu. You were sent here as pawns to gauge its power. You were supposed to die…" he paused "…all of you." There was a little anger in a pool of fear on the sound ninja's face.

"Sasuke killed the boy and the girl on your team, you gave your scroll for your life. That is what you are going to say to him. You are also going to take this" he brought his hand up and shadows materialized on it. There was a pawn on his hand. Dosu took the chess piece. "channel your chakra into it and press it on your heart." He did as told and a pawn tattoo appeared on his chest. "it is my cursed seal, the covenant. With this, your life is in my hands. All I need to kill you is think a command and send chakra. So, don't get funny ideas." He turned back to get back to his teammates.

"Now leave." Dosu didn't needed to told twice.

 **End If Chapter**

 **A little dark, eh? We can't always have sweetness in a world of ninja… Don't forget to play around with the buttons down there before going away.**

 **Guest: there is a reason for that.**

 **Bye**


	38. Preliminaries

**I am sorry for extended wait. Had to put priority to my university. Still feel like someone did unspeakable things to my brain…**

The team 7 didn't wasted much time after going through sound team, Naruto found the scroll they needed much earlier but it meant one less team to worry about so they took it too, and with one last advice for the team 10 to make a trap near tower for scrolls they made their way for the building. It wasn't long after they left the sight of team 10 Naruto suddenly paused and called to the road ahead.

"you need something Neji?" he didn't do anything else about their stalker. Neji came out a moment later.

"How did you know I was there?" he demanded with a glare. Naruto ignored his question and calmly turned to the Hyuuga.

"Is there something you need?" the Hyuuga's glare got harsher. Naruto snorted.

"Try Byakugan if you want to see inside my skull." he commented dryly. The harsh glare took a pint of frustration.

"I just don't understand how a boy like you got that strong, strong enough to give us prodigies a hard time." Naruto blinked and several amused chuckles left his mouth.

"Perhaps you will understand one day…" His gaze suddenly sharpened. "…If you live that long, of course." Neji raised an eyebrow.

"What?" Naruto shrugged.

"it is just… yesterday Sakura and Sasuke nearly died…" Neji snorted Naruto ignored it. "they got attacked by an S rank ninja. Perhaps you felt the killer intent he spread to the forest." Sasuke's eyes widened. Neji hummed an affirmative.

"You mean-?"

"That grass ninja was actually Orochimaru of the Sannin, he stole that girl's face as his disguise." Sasuke grimaced. Sakura shivered when she remembered the moment Orochimaru shed the fake face from his real one.

"I managed to reach just in time to rescue them." He lied.

"It is hard to believe… no matter how strong you are, he is S ranked." Skepticism was the most dominant expression on Neji's face. Naruto just offered a crooked grin in response and lazily pulled his Fuinjutsu notes.

"Well, they are still alive, aren't they? A ninja's life is never predictable… nor long." a pause. "We should go. I am pretty sure you have a team to find, proceed to hunt scrolls and get to the tower." He muttered a quiet 'let's go' to his teammates.

Neji was sure he was leaving with less than what he had when he arrived.

* * *

Naruto was a little annoyed with Kabuto's absence in the forest but didn't gave much thought to it. He was a 'just in case' and they didn't have any problems in the forest. He mentally shrugged as they entered the building. First thing to greet them was a big board. They read it and Sakura came to a conclusion.

"we should open scrolls." She suggested. Sasuke grunted and take one scroll while Naruto pocketed his book and took the other. They opened at the same time after a count down from three. It summoned Iruka. He looked around for a moment and smiled at team 7.

"Congratulations guys, you pass the second phase. I am proud of you." He praised them. Sakura beamed and Sasuke smirked. Naruto just shrugged and returned to his book, causing Sakura to snort and stick out her tongue at him.

"Blow a raspberry, I am sure that's what you want to do." Naruto commented and Sakura obliged him. Iruka shook his head to the childish display.

"Go and rest. You will have to wait until the fifth day is over." He said after a sigh and flickered away.

* * *

"… we are here as allies but do not mistake, this is war…" Hiruzen's explained the exams to the lined up chuunin hopefuls. Naruto rolled his eyes and returned to his book. Anko glared at him but let him be, pride still hurt from before. A sickly looking jonin flickered in front of them.

"Let me take it from here *cough* *cough* Hokage-sama. My name is Gekko Hayate and I will be the proctor for the exam" He requested around a coughing fit. Hiruzen nodded and stepped back. He stated some rules.

"Proctor I would like to forfeit" Kabuto requested.

"Anyone else wants to forfeit?"

No one raised hands.

"I am sorry but you can't." Kabuto raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?"

"We are in an even number. If someone else was leaving I would let you both leave."

Misumi raised his hand. "I want to forfeit too." Hayate turned to him suspiciously but let them both go. He didn't asked again.

A monitor came out of a wall and names rolled.

Akado Yoroi vs Uchiha Sasuke

'Let's see how will you do Sasuke/-kun' Naruto and Orochimaru thought in near unison with different meanings behind it.

"Will everyone with exception of *cough* *cough* Uchiha Sasuke and Akado Yoroi get to the balconies please? *cough* *cough*" they did as asked.

"are the participants ready?" he asked without coughing for once. Two nods were his answer.

"Begin!"

Sasuke activated his sharingan almost immediately, a pupil with three tomoe locked on the masked guy. He felt some tingling on his shoulder and rubbed it a little but otherwise ignored it. That moment exposed his seal for just a moment and it was enough for everyone on the balcony to see it. Around the Cursed Seal of The Heaven was a circle with several chains wound around it. Another set of chains was "strangling" the Cursed Seal by going around commas. It was a seal Naruto came up on the road – experimental if you will. A big gamble but better than leaving the cursed seal alone. 1 in 10 was terrible odds wherever you look.

There were several reactions with mortified shock was the most common one. Two however was different.

'That seal on my cursed one… I never seen anything like that. That brat must have put it!' Orochimaru fumed in his head and glared harshly at Naruto.

'it is working, good.' The blond grinned smugly at Orochimaru's glare.

Akado did some hand seals in response and his hands glowed blue and took off towards the Uchiha. He was so slow to Sasuke that it wasn't even funny, he tried to punch Sasuke but the Uchiha just raised his arm to block lazily. The masked boy grabbed his arm instead and Sasuke was a little surprised to feel his chakra drained.

'That glow meant this then…' he wrenched his arm back and kicked the man on his abdomen. He grunted and tried to grab Sasuke again but the Uchiha dodged the hand, pulled out a kunai and tried to gut the man. Akado jumped back in the last second but not fast enough to prevent kunai to cut him. He held the wound and glared at Sasuke behind his shades. Sasuke responded with an arrogant smirk.

"If this is all you can do just yield and save your life. You managed to keep your intestines first time but there wont be a second." He commented.

"*wheeze* Killing is not prohibited but frowned upon *cough*" the proctor reminded but Sasuke didn't seemed like listened it. Akado discreetly looked at Orochimaru to see he was half watching Sasuke and half glaring towards the boy's team. He knew there was a high chance he would be killed if he continued so he did the smart thing.

"Proctor, I forfeit."

Sasuke blinked. He wasn't expecting the man to actually did what he said but he wasn't complaining. Kakashi flickered behind Sasuke.

"follow me, we should talk." He said seriously. Sasuke nodded and followed. Naruto watched over his book and frowned.

No one knew that the blond was a clone.

* * *

"Why didn't you told me about the seal?" Kakashi demanded. Sasuke shrugged.

"I didn't think I need to. It isn't giving me much problem."

"Sasuke this is more serious than you-"

A spike of dark chakra stilled them. They turned to its source and Kakashi knew they were in a deep trouble for Orochimaru was nearing them, his face screwed with annoyance. Kakashi put Sasuke behind him and charged a Chidori but knew that it was a lost cause. The man simply walked next to him like all those years ago and man felt ashamed of himself for not improving after all that time. Orochimaru harshly yanked down Sasuke's collar and inspected the seal closely. He sneered when he understood enough to what seal was doing but not enough to counter it.

"That brat…" he hissed.

"Like what I did?" all eyes turned to Naruto as he came to the dim light of the room. Orochimaru growled but slight hesitance in his eyes didn't missed by anyone. Naruto continued when he was at an arm's length away from Sasuke.

"I admit your work is a work of genius but make no mistake, its crude beyond belief." He commented. Orochimaru's anger reignited.

"What have you done?" he demanded. Naruto ignored the heat of anger.

"Your seal is flooding nature chakra the victim's chakra network too quickly, that's the reason why only 1 in 10 survives, only 10 percent survives the chakra poisoning. Even then only 1 in 10 manages to fully preserve, rest is either slowly get mad, chakra pathways get damaged or slowly die from exposure. So, in short, only 1 percent is success… which is terrible odds." he explained.

"My seal solves this problem by narrowing the nature chakra 'pipe'. It is kind of 'elastic', which means it will resist less over time until Sasuke fully adapts the nature chakra, then it will dissolve."

He then moved to Orochimaru.

'I am not proficient enough to use in a fight but… I guess it be enough for what I want to do' he thought as he grabbed Orochimaru's left arm, ignoring the man's confusion. He rolled up his arm until the tattoo fully visible. He bit his thumb and made a kage bunshin to restrain him when he understood what he was about to do. He smeared his blood over the arm and weaved hand seals for summoning.

A puff of smoke later there was a medium sized snake. He grabbed the reptile's head before it can do anything and his chakra paralyzed it. Several tense moments later, which the snake checked his surroundings to understand what's going on, he let go. The snake tried to look at where the blond touched.

"I marked you." He simply stated. "You may go" The snake hissed at him and coiled around Orochimaru and tried to bite the clone. It jumped back before snake bit it and landed next to Naruto. Orochimaru glared one last time at Naruto before fled, who simply returned to his notes.

"Naruto…"

"Kakashi." He cut the man grimly. "There are people who are younger than half your age but more powerful than twice of you … I am one of them. I hide it so Hiruzen would think I have a 'normal' life, but I know he isn't going any younger. I am letting Orochimaru get his petty revenge so Hiruzen can have the death he wishes, by protecting Konoha and not on a bed like an old civilian. Don't force me to incapacitate you until all is over." He walked away then paused.

"Do what comes natural, Inu-yo" he said with an amused tone. Kakashi' eye widened.

"Impossible! Don't tell me you are…" Naruto was already left.

"Kakashi-sensei…" Sasuke started uncertainly. The jonin turned to him to see his questioning gaze. He sighed.

"I am not sure but if he is who I think he is… he was an ANBU legend and..." He cut himself before saying something he would dearly regret.

"And?" Sasuke repeated but his answer was silence.

* * *

Naruto came back to see Temari wipe the floor with Tenten, former letting latter fall on her war-fan.

"Winner Sabaku no Temari" he substituted with his clone and ordered it to dispel. The monitor circled over names again while he moved over the memories.

'Sasuke, Shino, Shikamaru and now Temari wins; Yoroi, Choji, Kankuro and now Tenten loses… if only it didn't saw Sakura and Ino's fight…*sigh*'.

Rock Lee vs Uzumaki Naruto

'Interesting' Naruto thought while watching an overly energetic Lee.

 **End of Chapter**

 **Hope you like. Y'know the drill**


	39. Naruto vs Lee

**Hi everyone. I squeezed some song suggestions around this time. Hope you like.**

* * *

 _Rock Lee vs Uzumaki Naruto_

Lee excitedly jumped down from balconies, causing little cracks on ground. Naruto walked down without any hurry, nose in his study.

'Weights?' Naruto raised an eyebrow. He thought for a moment and shrugged. 'He would find out eventually…' They stood by opposites and stared each other. A moment later Naruto broke contact by returning to his book. Lee glared a little and got into his stance.

"*cough* *cough* Uzumaki Naruto vs Rock Lee *wheeze* Begin!" the proctor jumped away to a safe distance. Naruto flipped to the next page, closely watched by Lee.

 **(Music suggestion: Naruto Ost: Predicament or Glued State)**

"Are you ready Naruto-san?" ever the gentleman bushy brows asked. Naruto hummed an affirmative. Lee glared again.

Lee decided to try waters and dashed at Naruto with reasonable speed. He started his assault with a left straight Naruto dodged without looking. Lee continued with a right hook but Naruto ducked bellow, again without looking. Lee got serious and continued his strafe full speed… but the situation was same, he attacked and Naruto dodged.

Deciding it was going nowhere after a while Lee jumped back to put some distance between them.

"You need to do your best." Naruto said with a bored tone. "Nothing weighting you down."

Lee turned to his teacher for permission. Gai was staring at Kakashi seriously. Former felt eyes on him and his eyes fell on Lee's. He then turned to Naruto.

"Remove them Lee." He allowed. Lee nodded and jumped to the statue with ram seal. Lee pulled up his orange warmers and unclasped weights on his legs. Temari frowned in confusion.

'how much can they weight and how would that help anywa-' Lee threw down his weights and two huge craters formed from impact. Pretty much everyone shocked in various degrees. A ghost of a grin appeared on Naruto's face.

"My turn now." A puff of smoke later there was a shadow clone next to him. He put a hand on the clone's back.

'No hand seals?' Gai thought. Real Naruto went a little away and sat down.

 **(Naruto Ost: Bad Situation)**

"You will fight the clone." He made a one-handed ram seal. The clone stumbled a bit before reoriented itself. "Start" the clone dashed at Lee with a manageable speed for him and started the assault with flurry of kicks. He took a step back to avoid the roundhouse then jumped above the leg-sweep and countered with a crush-down. The clone blocked with both its arms and tried to grab his leg. He pulled back before the clone succeed and tried to drive a left straight to its face. Clone parried with its right hand and countered with a left hook to his chest, which blocked by Lee's right elbow. Both jumped back, Lee with sharp grin at the challenge which clone responded with a smirk. Lee started to unwrap some of his bandages. The clone raised an eyebrow.

'More weights?' It thought but cut that one when Lee stopped unwrapping, put his arms to his face and concentrated for a moment. It got ready for anything as the boy disappeared to the other genin in the room in a burst of speed. The clone blocked the kick with his arms but the power behind raised it up the ground. It didn't dispel yet but was near the limit. Lee got behind the clone as the bandages from before started to wrap around it. It was now in a cocoon of bandages neck down, legs up so his arms were trapped and they were upside down. Lee started to spin them quickly.

" **Primary Lotus!"** Lee shouted and jumped away before he too crash head first. The clone was rigid for a few moments before its legs sagged down.

'It's over' Lee thought. Jonin were not convinced however.

"I thought I commanded you to not use any ninjutsu or genjutsu…" Naruto drawled.

 **(Naruto Shippuden Ost 2: Hidan)**

"You also commanded me to force him to his limits…" The answer came from the ceiling, where the clone was standing upside down. When others checked back the ground, they see a puddle of mud in the bandages.

'Mud clone. When?' Jonin thought. Gai glared at Kakashi who shrugged. Naruto hummed.

"True, continue but no genjutsu and try not to use ninjutsu. If you use ninjutsu offensively or any genjutsu, I will dispel you." Clone nodded and refocused on Lee for he was recovered enough to continue.

"When did you changed yourself with the clone?" he asked in a slightly pained voice.

"A ninja shouldn't tell his secrets but when you were concentrating for the lotus move." The clone sighed. "I was supposed to not use ninjutsu and should have simply cut through your bandages and get out… he is annoyed with me." There was no visible reaction from Naruto. "Oh well, what's happened happened… Now," **(Song sug: Naruto ost: Emergence of Talents)** there was a shift in the air as the clone broke through the restraining seal. "If you can open anymore of those gates, I strongly suggest you do." The clone suggested, dead serious. Lee concentrated to just do that, arms on his face and a wave of visible chakra surrounded him. Then it turned blue, and green after that. His skin turned red and then there was a strange hue around his body. All the while waves of chakra blew away dust and particles away, some towards the clone, much to the watchers on balconies.

'five? I am impressed' Naruto thought.

" **I am ready** " Lee said with great strain. Clone dashed at him, practically invisible except for the deep gouges on ground it passed. Then Lee was invisible too. Lee was a little bit stronger but the clone was faster and they both knew Lee had a limited time – very limited time – however the clone was a solid hit away from dispelling so if lee managed to land one before he was out of steam, he won. Otherwise its clone's victory. They bounced around, there were shockwaves when they hit each other both invisible for untrained eyes and blurs for trained ones. Only Gai, Kakashi, Hiruzen and Orochimaru watched it with better clarity than blurs – Gai because of his own training, Kakashi for sharingan, Hiruzen and Orochimaru for their experience. The bushy sensei was praying for his pupil to win, eyes closed, hands clasped and all, and Kakashi tuned to him in exasperation. In that moment clone landed a vicious thrust-kick to lee's guts and sent him down the ground. He made a huge crater when he crashed and his body couldn't handle the strain anymore. His aura was snuffed out like a candle. He was still conscious but he was far too tired and worn to move. Naruto got up from ground and clapped at the bowl head.

"Impressive. That power of yours can go toe to toe with a jonin, let alone chuunin." He praised. He made a half ram seal and clone dispelled. "However, you need to exercise more with it. Right now, a civilian can kill you. Experience is a must, for eight gates or any other kinjutsu really." He paused. "Still, I think you are a chuunin material so…" he raised his hand. "Proctor, I forfeit."

Sakura's chin hit the floor.

"Why? You beat him!" She shouted. She decided to come back after she regained consciousness, Naruto was yet to fight afterall and he was her teammate. He shrugged.

"I am bored and being a chuunin means nothing for me. I will not gain anything new except a different rank behind my name."

"Why are you here then? Why did you join chuunin exams?"

"Because you wanted to. I knew Konoha would prefer if her ninja go to restroom as a team so I met you. And I was right." There were a few grins on some foreign ninja. "But now its individual so there is no need for me to be here." He finished explaining and walked out of the room. A few moments of silence later monitor flickered to life and circled around remaining names.

* * *

 **End of Chapter**

 **Don't forget the buttons down there.**


	40. Parting Away

**FLASHBACK – 1 Year Ago, Dragon Graveyard**

"Your training with me is over. Find Obito and help him with Project Tsuki no Me. Make sure he revives me with Rinnegan." Madara gave his directions to Naruto, however the old ghost was unaware that his young disciple had other plans.

"Thanks for everything old man." He said with a smile. Madara didn't returned it. "but…" **(Music suggestion; NSOST2 track 6 Hidan (choir only) P.S: I regret not suggested this when I was writing the last chapter)** his smile turned ice cold. "I think not." Madara narrowed his eyes and made the hand seal to activate the puppet seal. When nothing happened, he glared at the blond.

"What's the matter?" he asked with a knowing grin. Then he put his hands together for ram seal.

" **Yin: Mind Drain** " he cast the jutsu he came up and created when he learned about the Yamanaka mind techniques. He also made another draining technique, this time draining body – when he found and searched the **Chimera no Jutsu** – but had yet to fuse them together. The latter wasn't as refined, former could be cast several times on one victim before the mind was too broken so he could practice more then kill the victim with no one wiser, but he could only use it once on one victim, then body is mangled in a strange and unique way – the body melt down like a candle wax – and it put a lot of strain to his body. He had to recuperate a month before he could cast it again.

Madara writhed a little then it was over. Naruto absorbed his knowledge and experience. He glared at him weakly.

"Now, before we proceed further," he put his new knowledge to use.

" **Tsukiyomi** " normally this genjutsu required a Mangekyou Sharingan or a Sharingan supported by the Gedo Statue but yin prowess allowed him to cast, dispel, reflect and mimic any genjutsu used on him. And Madara used it on him when he was explaining the Project to him.

 **(stop the music)**

He allowed the Uchiha to recover a little then made him young again. Madara looked his hands and turned to Naruto in confusion.

"I am truly grateful for the training you gave to me and helping me to find a reason to live. I don't share same dream with you but that doesn't mean we have to part away with hate." He let out an exasperated but also amused sigh "And knowing your love for a good battle, or as you name it 'dance', we will do that." He turned the barren whiteness to the valley the Uchiha's last battle with Hashirama. He conjured a Gunbai and a scythe, the man's favorite weapons, and threw them at him. He caught them with a tiny, rare smile.

"You thought this through." Naruto hummed as a reply. His eyes stung a little and he blinked, his eyesight was much sharper now. "Eternal Mangekyou is the last thing I am going to give to you." Naruto conjured himself a katana and jumped away a little.

"Shall I go all out or will you get destroyed if I do so" Naruto laughed.

"I say you shall go all out if you want to survive the first minute." Black tendrils arose from his shadow. They both had a flashback of roots doing the same.

"Let's begin." Naruto said.

 **(Song suggestion: Naruto ost: Avenger 2)**

In a moment Naruto's katana was locked with Madara's scythe and the blond was holding the gunbai's handle. Naruto tried to kick away Madara but his sharingan caught the moment and he tried to jump back. Naruto pulled the Gunbai – with Madara – but learned that it was a mistake when Madara used the momentum to swing a rising kick and the scythe as a double attack. Naruto used his knee and katana to block them. He then let go both his katana and Gunbai to weave handseals in lightning speed. Madara could only use the Gunbai to block the fireball. The impact staggered him a little and a black blur was his only sign, which gave him enough time, before a tendril stabbed. But it found only air as Madara was a few feet back now. He put his hands to horse seal and his hair started to rise from chakra usage but several shurikens of earth stopped him before he used his jutsu to bring forth a tsunami of fire. He used the Gunbai to block again and fanned them back to the blond, who used another tendril to catch them. Naruto made a snake handseal.

" **Earth: Stalagmite Barrage"** he commanded the tendril to throw the shurikens again asstone spikes arose from ground and flew at the Uchiha. He dodged or deflected them all with help of sharingan but when he looked up, he saw the blond was casting the jutsu he was going to. He didn't lose a moment to join him.

" **Fire style…** "

"… **Great fire annihilation** "

Twin pools of fire born and quickly covered the sight of them both. When they clashed there was a huge wall of fire. They fought for domination for several moments then Naruto split his chakra to fuel another technique; one he made, one he deemed as kinjutsu. He directed the chakra to his eye as Madara's fire won the domination but was slow to reach its target because of Naruto's constant resistance.

" **Yin Kinjutsu: Curse** " the jutsu was powerful while alone but it was most devastating when used to enhance another, elemental one. When enhanced fire, it made the fire inextinguishable, water diseasing, earth petrifying, wind choking and lightning charge chakra to shock constantly but all that was temporarily. It was all until the curse run out of chakra to power. Then all effects were over. It was a good addition for his fire annihilation as it quickly devoured Madara's away and continued. Madara activated Susanoo to defend and it was successful. Flames tried to eat away the construct but it stood its ground. Naruto stopped feeding when he saw it was futile. He took a few deep breaths to steady his chakra and hold his eye to relieve a little of the pain. Madara raised an eyebrow at him.

"That looked like Izuna's Amaterasu. Did you made a mangekyou for yourself?" Naruto panted a little more.

"No, it's a kinjutsu I made." He wiped the black substance from his eye as he finally stopped the leak of chakra to his eye which stopped the pain. "it gives some interesting results when sed to enhance elemental ninjutsu and overbalances the victim's chakra towards yin if directly used." He explained because he was about to be a dead man when the genjutsu ended anyway. Madara 'Hn'ed and feed more chakra to fully manifest Susanoo.

'what are you going to do now Naruto?' Madara thought curiously. He saw Naruto made a thinking gesture.

'I wonder' His sharingan read his lips as Naruto charged for another **Curse**. Madara commanded the Susanoo to stomp the boy to a fine paste but Naruto proved to be faster.

" **Yin Kinjutsu: Curse** " he used the technique on Susanoo this time and watched the construct flickered a little as it and Madara started screaming. He watched curiously as Susanoo flickered more before started to shrink, all the while both continued to scream. It now was skeleton form and moments later it vanished away. Madara was on his kneed and panting in pain. He too fell to his knees and panted, smoothing his chakra before it tore him apart… not without coughing a glob of blood and dark substance however. When he felt a little better, he grabbed his katana and arrive next to him. He rested it on Madara's shoulder, who was still trying to recover but his wheezing and blood dripping from his eyes told him this battle was over.

 **(Stop the music)**

"You lost." He helpfully stated and fell down next to the Uchiha, those two kinjutsu took more from him than he wanted to admit. Both panted for a while then Naruto recovered and ordered Madara to heal in his head. Madara was healed immediately but instead of getting up, he lied on his back next to the blond and let the adrenaline subside.

"Thank you, Naruto." He murmured but blond heard him.

"Don't mention it." He turned around to his back.

 **(Music suggestion: Deathnote OST: Requirem)**

"When I dispel this genjutsu I will use **body drain** on you" the blond said sadly. Uchiha turned to him.

"For sharingan"

"Yes. And Mokuton. I am not sure about Rinnegan but I am sure I will awaken Mangekyou." The Uchiha straightened back, his gaze watching the imaginary sky.

"So I am that precious to you. I wonder why…" he mused.

"As I said, you gave my life a meaning… lets get back." The world lost its color and they were back in graveyard, Madara well past his lifespan. Naruto clasped his hands.

" **Yin: Body Drain** " eternal chains lashed out from Naruto to Madara and when they coiled around Madara they both screamed from the white-hot pain. That several minutes was felt like hours before Madara melt down and chain returned to Naruto. He fell to his knees and blood came from his nose and ears. He coughed some then it was over. He turned to Madara in pain to see a human pudding on the throne and ground. More blood came out but this time from his eyes.

"Rest in peace Madara." He said. He summoned a kunai from his wrist-seal and gazed at his eyes in its reflection. it was a swirl, started from four points on edge of his iris and swirled to his pupil until each of them met his pupil under next one's starting point. He cut the chakra flow and his eyes went back to their blue ones… a darker shade of blue. He didn't saw it yet but his hair was a shade darker too as he put his hands to snake handseal. The throne sunk back to ground and he fashioned a crude coffin around the… puddle. He went to the exit but turned back to take the probably last look on his home for many years.

"Rest in peace" with that he was out.

 **End of Chapter**

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